I  11       ! 


ocience 


lijiiii 


Oiiiinaiy  MBi 

i! 

iillii  111 


lilliiiihi! 


ilM;lM);:;'in  !; 


CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

AND  THE 

ORDINARY  MAN 

A    DISCUSSION    OF    SOME    OF    THE    TEACHINGS 

OF  MARY  BAKER  EDDY,  DISCOVERER  AND 

FOUNDER  OF  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 


BY 

WALTER  S.   HARRIS 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND    LONDON 

ZTbe  Tkntcfterbocl^et  press 

1917 


Copyright,  1917 

BY 

WALTER  S.  HARRIS 


Ube  ftniclierbocfeec  press,  flew  IDorfc 


FOREWORD 

To  those  good  people  who  are  so  constituted 
that  they  can  see  nothing  in  aught  save  ** facts, " 
by  which  I  assume  that  they  mean  that  which 
can  be  verified  by  sight,  hearing,  smell,  touch,  or 
taste,  my  advice  is  frankly,  that  they  lay  this 
book  down  without  attempting  to  read  it,  for  to 
those  so  constituted,  it  will  be  sure  to  prove  only  a 
source  of  irritation.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  are 
ready  to  admit  with  me  that  the  world  has  only 
progressed  through  the  exercise  of  faith  in  the 
direction  of  the  things  it  has  hoped  for;  if  you  can 
see  that  the  great  inventions  and  great  discoveries 
of  the  world  have  always,  prior  to  their  existence 
"objectively'*  in  consciousness,  existed  in  the 
minds  of  men  as  things,  which  they  inferred  as 
possible  because  of  pushing  known  facts  to  the 
limit  of  reason,  and  then  exercising  beyond  the 
limits  of  reason  a  faculty  which,  for  want  of  a 
better  term,  I  have  called  in  this  book  the  "Faith 
which  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the 
evidence  of  things  unseen";  if  you  are  willing  in 
your  turn  to  exercise  your  reason  to  its  limits, 
and  then  speculate  from  known  facts  to  unknown, 
using  Faith,  the  Bible,  and  Demonstration  as  your 


iv  Foreword 

guides;  then  I  have  hope  that  you  will  gain  from 
this  little  volume,  if  not  a  conv^iction  of  its  truth 
and  an  agreement  with  its  viev/s,  at  least  something 
which  will  help  you  onward  in  the  pathway  toward 
truth  which  we  all  are  traveling. 

Many  things  written  herein  are  acknowledged 
to  be  speculations  and  inferences  from  the  known 
to  the  unknown.  They  are  things  which  seem 
sufficiently  probable  to  form  a  basis  for  the  exercise 
of  faith.  None  of  us  can  see  the  whole  of  the 
pathway,  but  by  comparing  our  views  of  that 
which  we  do  see,  and  by  relying  on  divine  guidance, 
we  shall  some  day  come  where  we  ca7i  see  "face 
to  face, "  and  not  as  now  "through  a  glass  darkly.  '* 

Lest  I  be  forced  to  do  it  many  times,  I  wish  to 
explain,  once  for  all,  what  may  appear  to  many  to 
be  a  needless  repetition  of  the  same  idea  or  ideas 
in  the  chapters  to  follow.  This  repetition  is  in- 
tentional and  therefore  I  do  not  apologize,  but 
explain  that  as  in  the  vicinity  of  a  large  city  all 
roads  eventually  lead  to  the  same  place,  so  the 
roads  near  the  City  which  is  called  Beautiful  all 
lead  to  God.  I  have  but  traveled  the  roads  as  I 
found'  them.  Sometimes  my  footsteps  may  have 
strayed  from  the  pathway,  but  always  the  roads 
themselves  have  led  me  to  a  central  idea.  One 
must  look  at  a  beautiful  building  from  different 
angles  to  appreciate  the  plan  of  the  architect,  but 
from  whatever  angle  he  looks,  it  is  the  building  he 
sees,  and  of  it  he  must  speak  as  best  he  may,  even 
though  he  uses  the  same  words  many  times. 


Foreword  v 

And  besides,  this  book  is  intended  to  be  and  is 
only  a  series  of  random  thoughts  spoken  from  one 
friend  to  another. 

I  should  add  to  this  foreword  the  statement 
that  while  this  book  has  in  its  title  the  words 
"Christian  Science,"  the  author  is  one  who 
believes  that  all  mankind  are  on  the  way  to  final 
and  conscious  unity  with  God.  Many  theories 
of  truth  held  by  men  have  elements  of  real  truth 
in  them,  which  elements  of  real  truth,  as  the 
"leaven  which  leavens  the  whole  lump,"  will,  the 
author  beHeves,  eventually  lead  their  followers 
through  experience  out  of  those  portions  of  their 
belief  which  are  untrue  and  into  the  one  way  of 
truth  which  is  that  trod  by  Christ  Jesus.  This 
book,  in  addition  to  being  a  discussion  of  Christian 
Science,  is  in  part  an  attempt  to  set  forth  the 
essential  true  elements  existing  in  some  other 
beliefs,  to  the  end  that  a  starting  point  may  be 
found  for  greater  brotherhood  among  all  churches 
and  beliefs,  a  basis  in  Christ  for  the  Brotherhood 
of  Man. 

Grateful  acknowledgment  is  hereby  made  for 
the  courteous  permission  to  include  in  the  present 
volume  citations  from  works  copyrighted  and  con- 
trolled by  the  following  individuals  and  firms: — 
Houghton,  Mifflin  Co.  and  Henry  Holt,  for  per- 
mission to  make  citations  from  Cosmic  Relations; 
D.  Apple  ton  &  Co.,  for  permission  to  make  quota- 
tion of  certain  paragraphs  derived  from  Essays  on 
Controverted  Questions  by  Thomas  H.  Huxley;  the 


vi  Foreword 

International  News  Service  for  their  authorization 

to  reprint  an  article  entitled  Hatred  Allowed  to 

Grow,  by  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox,  which  appeared  in 

the  Minneapolis  Tribune;  the  Minneapolis  Journal f 

for  permission  to  reprint  a  portion  of  an  editorial 

from  the  columns  of  that  paper,  and  to  Dr.  William 

Osler,for  permission  to  reprint  a  portion  of  an  article 

from  his  pen  which  appeared  in  the  Ladies  Home 

Journal  in  1915. 

W.  S.  H. 

Minneapolis,  Minn. 
June  10,  1916. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword    .......  iii 

CHAPTER 

I. — A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts     .         .  i 

11.—" Is  God  All?" 27 

III. — Contradictions 46 

IV. — Does  Matter  Have  Reality?    Chris- 
tian   Science    and    the    Physical 

Sciences,  Including  Medicine  .         .  53 

V. — Does  Evil  Have  Reality?    .         .         .  149 

VI. — Christ  Jesus  and  the  Meaning  of  Life  i  74 

THE  TWO  MINDS  IN  MAN        .             .             .  217 

IMMORTAL  MIND             .             .             .             .  23I 

MORTAL  MIND  AND  THE  DEVIL        .            .  253 

SPIRITUAL  LIFE  .  .  .  .272 

MORTAL  LIFE      .            .            .            .            .  277 

CURE      OF        SICKNESS        AND        OTHER 

''miracles"  UNDER  THE  SPIRITUAL  LAW  2S2 

CARNAL  LAW 29O 

LAW  OF  CHRIST                ....  297 
vii 


Vlll 


Contents 


MIND  AND  SPIRIT  ARE  ALL      . 
THE  WAY  OF  SALVATION 
UNREALITY  OF  EVIL      . 
CORRECTION  NOT  PUNISHMENT 
THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN      . 

VII. — To  Church  Members 
Epilogue    .         .         . 


PAGE 

312 

319 
320 

323 
329 
342 


CHRISTIAN    SCIENCE 

AND  THE 

ORDINARY  MAN 


Christian     Science    and 
The   Ordinary  Man. 


CHAPTER  I. 

A  FEW  PRELIMINARY  THOUGHTS, 

Ideas  born  of  long  rambles  in  the  pines  come 
to  me  seeking  the  clothing  of  written  word  that 
they  may  present  themselves  with  decency  to 
friend  and  antagonist  alike ;  but  I  fear  they  find  in 
me  a  sorry  tailor.  That  which  in  the  moss- 
grown  silences  was  alive  with  the  vital  spark  of 
truth;  that  which  in  the  camp-fire  glow  waked 
a  sympathetic  response  and  sprang  swiftly  into 
word  so  soon  as  born  in  the  mind,  shrinks  sensi- 
tively from  the  test  of  limited  and  unsympathetic 
ink  and  paper.  The  experience  is  not  new. 
Ideas  are  more  real  than  words  can  make  them. 
They  spring  forth  in  the  mind  with  such  swiftness 
and  power  of  conviction  that  they  write  for  them- 
selves a  volume  in  an  hour,  yet  when  for  the  love  of 
giving  a  message  to  the  joy  of  others,  one  would 
fain  clothe  them  in  the  feeble  alphabet,  it  seems 


2  Christian  Science 

that  anchoring  tornadoes  with  a  cotton  string 
would  be  as  easy.  The  most  one  can  hope  to  do 
when  separated  from  the  play  of  personality  in  the 
spoken  word  is  to  here  and  there  strike  a  tone  of 
truth  that  it  may,  like  the  tuning  fork,  evoke  an 
answering  harmony  in  the  sensitive  mind  strings 
of  the  friends  who  read  intuitively  that  which 
it  is  in  the  heart  to  write. 

Yesterday,  I  built  in  mental  sentences  a  dignified 
structure  called  "Preface"  in  which  "I"  became 
*'the  writer,"  and  all  the  binding  conventions  of 
literary  style  were  strictly  remembered;  but  the 
temple  of  yesterday  becomes  the  ruin  of  to-day 
when  I  recall  the  camp-fire  circle  and  remember 
that  we  were  there  quite  ready  to  use  all  the  'Ts'* 
in  the  type  case  if  only  we  could  send  a  living 
message  from  heart  to  heart  and  through  hearts 
sympathy  to  mind.  Conventions  and  literary 
styles  have  their  good  places  and  uses,  yet  as 
between  friends  who  wish  to  speak  intimately  of 
subjects  mutually  interesting,  they  seem  an  added 
barrier  for  the  thoughts  to  cross  and  a  fortress 
wall  warring  against  closer  acquaintance. 

"Personal  Acquaintance"  one  often  hears  is  the 
key  to  the  minds  of  many  men,  and  those  who  have 
communed  with  others  in  the  still  of  moonlit 
evenings  around  the  fire  with  nothing  humanly 
visible  between  them  and  the  stars  know  that  there 
that  key  can  easily  be  found.  It  is  the  key  I  would 
most  gladly  use  with  all  who  here  read  the  record 
of  some  thoughts  (both  of  mine  and  of  others) 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts  3 

which,  born  in  the  camp-fire  Hght,  have  drawn  at 
least  one  and  it  is  hoped  other  men  a  Httle  nearer 
the  source  of  all  good.  While  we  cannot  all  sit 
around  the  same  fire,  we  can  at  least,  in  imagi- 
nation and  sympathetic  thought,  even  through  the 
poor  medium  of  the  written  word  draw  closer  in 
that  personal  acquaintance  which  goes  far  to 
smooth  the  way  for  sympathetic  converse  and 
understanding.  That  is  why  this  chapter  might 
have  been  headed, ' '  By  way  of  getting  acquainted. ' * 

As  you  may  have  truly  surmised  from  the 
foregoing,  I  love  the  out-of-doors.  I  have  in 
that  far-distant  locality,  which  to  my  family  is 
known  vaguely  as  'Hhe  woods,"  two  log  cabins, 
both  of  which  would  rattle  if  shaken  in  the 
room  in  which  I  am  now  writing.  They  are 
magnificently  equipped  with  everything  which 
ought  to  make  me  long  for  home.  These  are  my 
occasional  winter  residences,  and  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  visit  them  even  though  the  snow  be  piled  high 
before  the  door.  In  summer,  I  have  a  consump- 
tive gasoline  launch  which  coughs,  sputters,  and 
dies  but  can  always  be  resurrected  by  minute 
attention  to  details.  In  this,  with  tents  and 
much  impedimenta  too  varied  for  description, 
I  voyage  unknown  waters,  stopping  for  the  night 
wherever  the  sun  decrees. 

Sometime,  I  am  going  to  take  you  with  me  on 
one  of  these  journeyings,  but  my  mission  now  is  a 
message  and  not  a  story,  and  I  mention  the 
story  part  only  to  give  you  a  thought  of  how  the 


4  Christian  Science 

message  came  and  why  I  hope  it  may  please  and 
interest  you. 

I  "used  to  think  of  "the  woods"  as  a  place  where 
I  went  to  run  away  from  the  turmoil  of  external 
things  which  overpressed  me — a  place  where  God's 
air  was  fresher  than  at  home,  where  there  was  a 
subtle  mystery  of  different  sunshine,  an  ill-under- 
stood, invisible  medicinal  something  to  send  me 
back  strong,  to  meet  again  the  same  pressure  of 
externals.  On  growth  of  thought,  however,  that 
theory  failed  to  meet  the  facts  for  plainly  the 
sunshine  at  home  was  just  as  beautiful,  the  air  at 
home  just  the  same  air,  and  strange  to  relate 
(as  I  then  thought)  the  turmoil  was  there  and 
here  alike. 

So  I  have  had  to  revise  my  thoughts,  as  thanks 
be  we  often  are  forced  to  do,  and  now  I  think  of 
going  to  ''the  woods"  as  a  process  of  changing 
thoughts,  and  stilling  that  turmoil  which  I  now 
know  to  be  but  a  part  of  myself,  by  fixing  those 
thoughts  on  that  which  comes  nearer  the  realiza- 
tion of  God's  idea  for  man  than  the  things  I  once 
thought  of  as  resistlessly  pressing  upon  me  from 
without  in  the  busy  city.  Some  day,  I  hope  that 
I  can  sit  here  in  my  study  and  realize  in  mind, 
though  far  distant,  the  quieting  influence  of  the 
pines,  but  God  leads  us  gently  and  when  we  cannot 
of  ourselves  realize  all  of  Him  we  ought,  He  supplies 
the  pines  and  his  wild  creatures  to  help  us.  Now 
that  I  have  written  this  last  paragraph,  I  cannot 
say  clearly  why  it  seems  to  fit  my  message  unless 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts  3 

it  be  because  of  the  hope  that  it  will  help  you  to 
see  the  surroundings  in  which  that  message  had  its 
start,  and  further  help  you  to  know  the  men  who 
were  instruments  in  starting  it. 

Probably  they  are  the  last  persons  in  the  world 
whom  you  would  look  to  either  as  source  or  as 
contributing  influences  to  the  thoughts  I  wish  to 
talk  with  you.  As  I  have  said  above,  the  only 
reason  I  mention  either  them  or  the  woods  is  to 
bring  to  you  closely  the  surroundings  in  which 
the  thoughts  had  birth,  and  to  impress  an  idea 
upon  you  which  has  grown  upon  me:  the  idea 
that  of  all  the  subjects  discussed  around  the 
camp  fire,  in  the  street,  the  office,  or  the  home, 
there  is  none  in  which  men  are  so  truly  interested 
and  about  which  they  are  more  ready  and  anxious 
to  talk  than  that  new  type  of  thought  about 
God,  which  brings  Him  nearer  to  the  daily  life 
of  every  man,  and  makes  Him  a  more  vital  factor 
in  that  life. 

I  must  dwell  a  Httle  on  this  thought.  Perhaps 
it  will  be  a  revelation  to  you  as  it  was  to  me — • 
or  perhaps  you  will  have  discovered  it  for  yourself 
and  this  part  of  my  story  will  be  an  old  one  to  you. 
Nevertheless,  I  must  tell  of  it.  I  had  thought  in 
former  days  that  a  monopoly  existed  among  "ed- 
ucated" folk  both  as  to  philosophical  thought 
and  as  to  its  understanding.  First  off,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  the  Presbyterians  had  the  sum  of  the 
truth  rolled  up  in  a  package  and  specially  delivered 
to  them.     A  little  later  in  Hfe,   I  extended  the 


6  Christian  Science 

limits  to  Presbyterians  and  college  men  who 
agreed  with  Presbyterians  in  spirit  though  not  in 
word.  Then  I  discovered  that  sometimes  a  business 
man  evinced  an  unexpected  and  delightful  in- 
telligence and  interest  in  philosophy  and  in  reli- 
gion, and  of  late  I  have  with  a  large  degree  of 
success  ventured  to  mention  the  subjects  to, 
and  found  receptive  intelligence  coming  from,  the 
man  who  chops  trees,  the  man  who  cooks,  and 
even  from  Old  George  who  lives  in  a  tar-paper 
shack  because  the  demon  rum  chased  him  there. 

The  proposition  that  matter  does  not  exist  is 
one  that,  unless  you  have  had  just  the  experience 
I  have  had,  you  would  probably  expect  George 
and  the  man  who  chops  to  vehemently  deny,  and 
it  was  one  that  I  did  not  venture  to  mention  until 
I  found  that  somewhere  and  by  some  mysterious 
means  they  had  already  heard  of  it.  Now,  while 
I  cannot  make  it  plain,  either  to  my  own  mate- 
rial senses  or  to  those  of  another,  that  matter  does 
not  exist,  I  can  give  reasons  which  are  satisfactory 
to  me,  at  least,  for  thinking  it  is  by  no  means  as 
certain  as  we  have  been  accustomed  to  believe, 
that  it  does.  And  I  can  give  very  excellent 
reasons,  again  satisfactory  to  me,  why  it  would  be  a 
very  great  blessing  to  mankind  if  it  did  not. 

When  asked  to  do  so,  I  did  explain  to  George 
and  to  others  like  George  in  some  respects,  and  I 
was  surprised  to  find  that  what  I  had  to  say  was 
received  with  the  greatest  of  interest,  and  with 
apparent  acceptance  of  its  possibility.     This  experi- 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts  7 

ence  is  one  I  have  had  everywhere  I  have  gone  in 
the  last  two  years,  and  I  have  come  to  wonder 
whether,  after  all,  there  may  not  be,  as  Mrs.  Eddy 
of  Christian  Science  fame  says  there  is,  an  un- 
spoiled man  underneath  or  rather  behind  the 
appearance  we  see,  who  apprehends  instinctively, 
— understands  and  assimilates  a  statement  made 
to  him  which  seems  to  lead  toward  or  approximate 
truth.  It  is  difficult  to  account  for  the  ready 
apprehension  of  these  things  by  the  so-called 
uneducated,  on  any  other  basis.  I  have  also 
wondered  whether  the  possession  of  that  which 
we  call  education,  if  it  happens  to  have  directed 
one's  mind  in  certain  fixed  channels,  does  not 
positively  hinder  understanding  of  spiritual  truth. 
"A  little  child  shall  lead  them." 

I  think  it  was  vastly  more  difficult  for  me  to 
grasp  things  not  apprehensible  by  my  senses  than  it 
was  for  George,  in  spite  of  his  unfortunate  history, 
and  inasmuch  as  I  have  found  all  over  the  country 
those  in  widely  differing  walks  of  life  who  have 
listened  to  what  was  in  my  heart  to  say  with 
interest  and  sympathy,  it  has  seemed  that  the 
experience  of  one  who  has  come  to  his  present 
viewpoint  by  rather  a  difficult  pathway  might  be 
helpful  to  others  who  perchance  are  starting, 
ending,  or  midway  through  the  same  journey. 

So  I  come  to  you  with  my  story.  It  is  not, 
probably,  a  new  one,  but  it  may  be  the  first  time 
it  has  been  told  in  this  way,  and  it  may  be  new  to 
you.     I  do  not  pretend  that  this  I  have  to  say  is 


8  Christian  Science 

the  sum  of  wisdom.  Something  may  come  to  me 
to-morrow  which  will  lead  me  to  change  the  view  I 
now  have,  and  I  reserve  the  right  to  do  so,  as 
should  you.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  agree  with  me, 
but  my  hope  is  that  as  one  goes  to  pick  rasp- 
berries in  a  field,  you  will  not  reject  the  berries 
and  turn  back  without  crossing  the  fence  because 
you  see  some  weeds.  I  am  reminded  that  when 
I  first  read  Science  and  Health,  there  were  many 
things  on  every  page  I  could  not  agree  with — 
there  are  still  many — but  on  every  page  I  found 
also  much  that  helped  me  to  help  others,  and 
myself.  If  this  book  can  in  anywise  help  another, 
its  purpose  is  accomplished. 

I  am  a  Presbyterian,  perhaps  not  a  very  con- 
sistent one,  but  at  least  I  am  not  nor  have  I  ever 
been  a  member  of  any  Christian  Science  organiza- 
tion. I  make  this  explanation  because  there  are 
many  good  people  to  whom  the  name  of  Christian 
Science  acts  very  much  as  a  red  rag  does  when 
shaken  at  a  bull.  Mr.  Darwin  tells  us  that  we 
are  descended  from  the  animals  and  it  has  been 
my  pleasure  often  to  imagine  that  some  of  us 
may  be  descended  from  other  animals  than  the 
monkey.  So,  I  have  no  doubt  that  there  are 
people  both  of  the  bovine  and  the  bull  variety. 
I  surmise  that  if  you  should  ask  Mr.  Bull  why  he 
always  runs  violently  in  the  direction  of  a  red  rag, 
he,  if  endowed  with  speech,  would  find  great 
difficulty  in  explaining — it  just  makes  him  feel 
that  way  anyhow — the  blame  thing  is  no  good 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts  9 

anyway,  and  Grandfather  Bull  always  said  "down 
with  it " — so  he  sticks  his  tail  up  in  the  air,  bellows 
madly,  and  rams  away — and  if  the  rag  happens 
to  be  moved,  he  rams  the  nearest  thing  handy. 

So  it  is  with  Christian  Science — substitute  those 
words  for  the  rag,  any  allied  doctrine  for  the 
nearest  thing  handy;  Smith,  Jones,  or  Brown  for 
the  bull,  and  your  parallel  is  exact.  All  of  which 
is  said  with  the  utmost  good  nature,  and  no 
malice  whatever.  Many  of  these  good  people 
are  my  very  good  friends  and  I  only  reserve  the 
right  to  poke  a  little  good  natured  fun  at  them 
just  as  they  doubtless  will  find  many  occasions, 
if  they  read  this  book  through,  for  poking  fun  at 
me. 

Huxley  says  in  one  of  his  books  that  he  is  an 
agnostic,  and  then  proceeds  to  define  that  term 
as  signifying  a  person  who,  if  you  asserted  the 
proposition  that  two  and  two  make  five,  would 
lend  an  attentive  ear  to  your  arguments,  and 
agree  with  you,  if  you  could  show  him  a  satisfying 
reason  for  so  holding.  While  I  might  differ  with 
this  definition,  I  can  with  all  sincerity  say  that  if 
that  be  the  true  attitude  of  an  agnostic,  it  is  to 
my  mind  far  preferable  to  the  attitude  of  that  man 
who  adopts  a  constitution  and  by-laws  for  himself 
(or  perchance  adopts  one  made  to  order  for  him 
by  another)  and  then,  having  himself  named  it  the 
sum  of  all  truth,  refuses  to  consider  opposing 
thoughts  which  may  be  presented  to  him.  I  have 
always,   from   the   earliest   days   of  independent 


lo  Christian  Science 

thought,  felt  instinctively  that  to  get  into  the 
attitude  of  an  attorney  or  advocate,  either  for  or 
against  any  belief  or  statement  of  belief,  is  a  mis- 
fortune for  any  man.  If  you  have  any  legal  atti- 
tude which  you  feel  must  be  adopted,  let  it  be 
that  of  the  judge  who,  listening  to  both  sides  of 
the  argument,  makes  up  his  mind  on  the  basis 
of  the  best  evidence  presented,  and  is  always 
ready  to  change  his  opinion  if  other  and  more 
convincing  evidence  be  offered  and  whenever  it  is 
offered.  The  truth  is  always  the  same,  and 
always  has  been.  But  man's  knowledge  of  and 
opinions  concerning  that  truth  change.  The  sum 
total  of  unknown  truth  is  surely  great  enough,  if 
one  may  judge  from  the  discoveries  concerning 
it  in  the  last  hundred  years,  to  constitute  a  mental 
warning  to  any  man  not  to  shut  his  ears  and  his 
heart  arbitrarily  to  any  who  wishes  sincerely 
to  present  that  which  appears  to  be  a  new  truth, 
or  rather  I  should  say  a  new  statement  of  the 
truth.  Listening  does  not  mean  accepting.  The 
Master  has  equipped  every  man  with  the  capacity 
to  test  that  which  he  hears,  and  has  given 
satisfactory  instructions  from  time  to  time  as  to 
how  to  go  about  it.  "By  their  fruits  ye  shall 
know  them,"  and  "Knock  and  it  shall  be  opened 
unto  you,  "  "Seek  and  ye  shall  find" — seem  to  me 
to  indicate  pretty  clearly  the  way  in  which  each 
man  of  you  can  for  himself  reach  a  conviction  of 
the  truth  of  any  belief  presented  to  him  for  con- 
sideration— but  one  is  not  "seeking"  who  shuts 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts        ii 

the  door  to  the  statement  of  truth  just  because  it 
seems  to  destroy  former  beHefs,  and  a  great  deal 
of  the  knocking  done  nowadays  is  of  the  destructive 
variety  and  can  only  be  efficiently  done  with  a 
hammer. 

All  of  which  is  merely  by  way  of  saying  that  in 
reading  this  book,  I  plead  for  the  open  mind  from 
all  of  my  readers.  All  of  which  seems  also  to  have 
slid  off  my  pen  in  consequence  of  the  remark 
that  I  am  not  a  Christian  Scientist. 

In  naming  this  book,  I  hesitated  to  bring  into 
its  title  the  name  of  Christian  Science  for  many 
reasons,  one  of  which — the  antipathy  of  many 
good  persons  to  that  doctrine — I  have  already 
mentioned.  Then,  too,  I  have  not  consulted  with 
any  Christian  Scientist  concerning  either  its 
writing  or  publication,  and  as  I  have  in  reading 
Science  and  Health,  with  Key  to  the  Scriptures,  by 
Mary  Baker  Eddy,  reserved  at  all  times  my  liberty 
to  disagree  with  such  of  its  conclusions  as  I  could 
not  either  understand  or  demonstrate,  I  cannot, 
with  any  assurance,  say  that  I  represent  the 
Christian  Science  point  of  view — all  I  can  claim 
to  do  is  to  truthfully  set  forth  my  own.  But  in 
spite  of  these  very  good  reasons  for  not  using  the 
term  Christian  Science  in  connection  with  my 
book,  I  find  that  much  of  that  which  I  have  in 
my  heart  to  write  is  so  far  in  agreement  with  the 
views  of  the  Discoverer  and  Founder  of  Christian 
Science,  Mary  Baker  Eddy,  that  I  would  fail  in  my 
obligation  of  acknowledgment  were  I  to  speak  of 


12  Christian  Science 

the  views  herein  to  be  set  forth  as  my  own,  and 
I  have  therefore  entitled  the  book  Christian  Science 
and  the  Ordinary  Man.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that 
the  story  of  the  process  by  which  one  common 
ordinary  man  has  come  to  the  views  here  to 
be  expressed,  and  some  of  his  speculations  regard- 
ing things  which  cannot  be  apprehended  by  finger, 
ear,  or  eye,  might  be  of  interest  and  value  to  some 
other  common  ordinary  man,  not  because  of  the 
fact  that  the  views  are  new,  but  because  of  the 
fact  that  God  in  wonderful  ways  leads  those  who 
sincerely  wish  the  truth,  to  convictions  which 
become  too  real  to  the  individual  to  be  harnessed 
in  words;  and  possibly  the  story  of  mental  pro- 
cesses in  one  case  may  help  others  who  are  on  the 
same  pathway,  to  reach  the  same  inner  conviction 
and  peace.  For  be  it  known  at  the  outset  that  I 
am  not  a  college  professor,  but  just  an  ordinary 
business  man. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  an  excess  of  knowledge, 
and  the  road  along  which  I  have  come  is  simply 
that  to  be  trodden,  I  believe,  by  any  man  who 
starts  sincerely  in  the  direction  of  finding  the 
truth  for  himself,  and  pursues  the  way  with  zeal 
and  interest.  I  say  interest,  advisedly,  for  as  I 
have  elsewhere  said,  it  seems  to  me  that  of  all 
the  interesting  subjects  now  discussed  by  men, 
there  is  none  so  interesting  and  none  in  which  more 
men  are  interested  than  in  what  I  may  call  the  true 
relation  of  man  to  God,  and  in  what  that  relation 
may  mean  to  man  in  his  common  daily  life. 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts        13 

My  first  acquaintance  with  the  type  of  thought 
which  I  have,  in  the  title  of  this  work,  named 
Christian  Science  for  want  of  a  better  term  to 
comprise  it,  came  about,  as  is  very  often  the  case, 
because  of  ill  health — not  of  the  so-called  organic 
variety — merely  a  nervous  condition  induced, — no, 
not  by  overwork, — but  by  overworry.  Doubt- 
less many  have  experienced  the  same  sort  of 
thing — sleepless  nights,  and  just  as  tired  when 
sleep  came  as  when  it  did  not,  pins  and  needles, 
aches  and  pains  like  hatpins  all  over,  every  time 
the  baby  speaks  above  a  whisper,  which  is 
always,  one  jumps  far  enough  to  land  a  distance 
record,  thoughts  skipping  from  Hudson  Bay  to 
Patagonia  and  back  again,  without  resting  on 
one  spot  more  than  a  second,  etc., — the  etc. 
containing  more  than  the  specifications.  I  went 
to  all  the  doctors  there  were  and  was  dissatisfied 
with  each  new  opinion  received  therefrom,  there 
being  an  opinion  for  each  doctor  and  one  over, 
because  one  doctor  had  two  opinions.  No  offense 
to  the  doctors.  One  always  respects  sincere 
effort.  Some  of  my  old  doctors  are  among  the 
most  self-sacrificing  of  men,  and  if  you  leave  out 
the  "self"  you  can  cover  most  of  the  rest. 

Seriously,  I  have  many  good  friends  among  the 
doctors  for  whom  I  feel  the  truest  respect.  I  have 
no  doubt  they  have  produced  and  will  produce 
much  of  good,  though  possibly,  as  I  will  have 
occasion  to  say  later,  not  just  in  the  way  that  has 
been  supposed  by  them  and  others. 


14  Christian  Science 

Be  that  as  it  may,  one  of  my  good  friends — 
though  not  a  Christian  Scientist — desired  me  to 
try  Christian  Science — it  being,  as  was  said,  "good 
for  a  man  who  really  has  nothing  the  matter  with 
him — and  as  it  could  not  do  any  harm  anyway, 
we  might  as  well  try  it,  and  if  it  has  no  serious 
effects,  perhaps  we  can  use  it  to  make  the  baby  go 
to  sleep."  So  protesting  my  own  wisdom,  and  the 
foolishness  of  others,  I  went  to  a  Christian  Science 
practitioner;  for  what  could  he  do  for  me  where 
my  eminent  friends  of  long  and  erudite  study  had 
failed  ?  This  said  practitioner  is  a  large  and  benev- 
olent gentleman  who  to-day  is  my  very  good 
friend,  and  after  a  few  well  chosen  words  by  me 
in  my  own  behalf  (for  who  will  take  the  trouble 
to  explain  to  others  that  you  are  not,  in  spite  of 
appearances,  if  you  neglect  doing  it  yourself?) 
he  closed  his  eyes  and  went  to  sleep,  right  in  the 
middle  of  an  argument  of  mine,  to  the  effect  that 
there  was  nothing  to  it.  There  being  nothing 
further  to  say,  or  at  least  no  one  to  whom  that 
which  needed  to  be  said  could  be  spoken,  silence 
reigned,  and  after  it  had  reigned  sufficiently,  it 
abdicated  and  some  more  silence  climbed  up  in  the 
throne.  Now,  I  am  trying  to  tell  this  to  you  just 
as  it  seemed  to  me  at  the  time,  and  if  you  will  try 
to  project  yourself  into  my  mind  then  and  now, 
you  will  see  that  I  mean  no  disrespect.  I  am 
simply  trying  to  tell  you  how  you  will  feel  if  you 
try  it — later  I  will  have  more  to  say.  The  only 
sensation  I  was  conscious  of  was  like  that  which 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts        15 

happened  once  when  I  was  a  little  boy  and  a 
mouse  crawled  up  the  minister's  sleeve  while  he 
was  saying  a  prayer.  Try  it  and  see — a  sort  of 
"I  just  won't  explode  feeling,"  you  know,  and  I 
am  ashamed  to  confess  that  the  thought  came  to 
me,  *'How  do  you  suppose  he  would  explain  it  if 
he  has  bad  sleeping  habits,  and  forgot  himself?" 

But  you  recall  that  once  Diogenes  had  it 
demonstrated  to  his  own  satisfaction  by  another 
wise  man,  that  he  just  could  not  get  up  and  walk 
around  his  tub — and  refuted  the  argument  by 
getting  up  and  walking  around  it.  So,  in  a  very 
few  days,  I  began  to  feel  better,  and  in  a  few  days 
more,  at  the  invitation  of  my  large  gentleman 
friend,  I  ventured  to  call  him  up  at  two  o'clock 
in  the  morning  when  I  could  not  sleep,  and  I  went 
to  sleep  immediately  thereafter. 

Now,  I  am  well  aware  that  there  are  running 
through  your  mind,  thoughts  something  like  the 
following:  nervous  imagination,  auto-sugges- 
tion, confidence  induced  by  mental  reliance  on 
another,  precipitation  of  gastric  juices  through 
serene  mental  atmosphere,  subjective  mind  re- 
gaining control  over  objective  mind  by  sugges- 
tion, etc.,  for  I  am  familiar  with  all  of  these, 
and  I  believe  that  there  is  scarcely  a  book  on  the 
subject  I  have  not  read — but  listen — I  remember 
that  in  our  philosophy  class  we  had  a  favorite 
illustration  to  the  effect  that  if  you  were  throwing 
dice  with  a  man  and  he  got  double  sixes  twice  in 
succession,  you  thought  he  was  lucky,  but  if  he 


i6  Christian  Science 

got  them  twenty  times  in  succession,  you  pulled 
a  gun  on  him  on  the  theory  that  the  dice  were 
loaded — you  didn't  actually  know  it  till  you  cut 
open  the  dice — he  might  have  hypnotized  them — 
but  you  had  a  pretty  safe  chance  of  vindication 
if  you  used  the  gun.  And  anyway  even  if  it  be 
auto-suggestion  that  helped  me,  it  got  the  results. 
Like  the  blind  man  whom  Jesus  cured  and  who 
said,  "This  one  thing  I  know,  that  whereas  I 
was  blind,  now  I  see,"  to  me  the  method  is  of 
interest  only,  that  I  may  try  to  understand  and 
apply  it  again. 

So,  the  baby,  one  afternoon,  had  a  vomiting 
spell,  with  fever  and  other  distressing  signals.  I 
called  up  the  practitioner — the  fever  and  vomiting 
promptly  left.  I  had  a  cold  so  that  my  vocal 
apparatus  was  converted  into  a  furnace  which 
customarily  would  have  been  like  the  heathen 
in  the  Messiah.  I  visited  the  little  office  down- 
town, and  came  away  from  there  in  half  an  hour 
with  no  vestige  of  trouble,  and  no  return.  There 
is  no  need  of  multiplying  instances — they  were 
sufficient  for  me  to  see  in  them  a  "stop,  look,  and 
listen"  signal,  and  while  I  am  not  going  to  be 
drawn  into  any  argviment — having  previously 
seen  the  disaster  thereof — I  will  venture  the  pre- 
diction that  if  any  sincere  person  will  do  the  same 
thing  I  did  with  the  desire  to  find  out,  and  not 
with  the  thought  of  disproving  something  in 
which  he,  a  priori,  does  not  beHeve,  that  same 
sincere  person  will,  as  I  did,  get  enough  conviction 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts        17 

to  start  him  in  the  direction  of  studying  the  subject 
seriously.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  we  get  out  of 
life  very  much  that  which  we  put  into  it,  and  if  one 
puts  in  skepticism  and  disbelief,  instead  of  a 
desire  to  learn,  it  is  not  impossible  that  conviction 
of  the  truth  will  not  become  clear  to  that  individual. 
To  any  one,  the  process  is  slow — one  cannot  ex- 
pect to  jump  from  inherited  belief  to  that  which  at 
first  sight  seems  to  controvert  in  essentials  all  which 
one  used  to  hold.     But  of  that,  more  hereafter. 

I  said  a  few  lines  back  that  my  experiences  were 
a  "stop,  look,  and  listen"  sign  to  me,  and  if  you 
are  constituted  as  I  am,  you  will  know  that  I 
simply  mean  by  that  an  imperative  signal  to  try 
and  understand — for  I  am  among  those  so 
unfortunately  constituted  that  I  cannot  get  the 
benefit  of  a  thing  that  I  cannot  understand  up  to 
the  limit  of  my  comprehension.  By  that  I  mean 
to  admit,  as  all  must,  that  there  is  in  the  nature  of 
things  much  that  the  human  mind  cannot  as  yet 
at  least  grasp,  but  for  myself  I  like  to  press  as  far 
into  an  understanding  of  the  truth  as  my  reason 
and  intuition  will  carry  me — and  I  use  the  word 
intuition  advisedly,  because  I  am  sure  that  in 
relation  to  these  subjects,  there  is  and  will  be  much 
which,  so  far  as  the  human  reason  is  concerned, 
must  be  stated  as  speculation,  and  intuition  of 
truth  relied  upon  to  verify  its  truth.  By  intuition 
I  mean  just  what  the  occultist  does  when  he  uses 
that  term  (see  Steiner's  Gates  of  Knowledge ^ 
page  116). 


i8  Christian  Science 

So  having  been  warned  to  turn  aside  and  try  to 
understand,  I  set  to  work  to  first  reason  as  far  as  I 
could,  and  then  beyond  that,  to  speculate  a  little 
further,  relying  on  intuition  and  demonstration  for 
the  verification  of  that  of  my  thought  which  was 
purely  speculation.  You  will  understand  more 
of  what  I  mean  by  demonstration  later. 

I  found  in  arranging  my  thoughts,  and  I  believe 
many  of  my  readers  will  find  the  same  to  be  true 
of  themselves,  that  my  first  instinctive  opposition 
to  Christian  Science  came  about  in  three  ways. 
First,  because  it  controverted  the  evidence  of  my 
senses ;  second,  because  it  controverted  (seemingly) 
that  which  I  had  been  taught  to  believe  regarding 
the  mission  of  Jesus,  and  the  nature  of  evil;  and 
third,  because  it  controverted  the  commonly 
accepted  beliefs  as  to  the  world  in  which  I  seemed 
to  be  living.  Therefore,  I  set  to  work,  (i)  to 
discover  for  myself  how  reliable  the  evidence  of 
my  senses  is;  (2)  granting  that  that  evidence  may 
be  unreliable,  how  much  of  that  which  has  been  re- 
ferred to  as  ''commonly  accepted  beliefs"  is  based 
on  this  unreliable  evidence;  (3)  what  has  been 
the  opinion  of  the  brightest  minds  in  the  world's 
history  as  to  the  reliability  of  sense  testimony; 
(4)  granting  the,  to  me,  rather  self-evident  propo- 
sition that  my  view  of  the  world  is  conditioned 
by  my  idea  of  God,  what  is  that  idea  which  to  me, 
personally,  seems  best  to  fill  the  requirements  of 
my  life  as  I  know  them;  (5)  granting  that  the 
Bible,  while  it  may  contain  errors,  none  the  less 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts        19 

contains  very  much  of  truth — what  does  the  Bible 
and  what  does  Jesus  more  particularly  say  about 
those  beliefs  and  about  the  beliefs  which  I  am 
asked  to  accept?  I  set  to  work  to  study  and  I 
have  read  much,  my  reading  leading  me  into 
many  lines.  I  have  even  gone  through  Madam 
Blavatsky's  Secret  Doctrine,  I  shall  have  more  to 
say  of  that  later. 

I  marked  passages  in  my  Bible  for  nearly  two 
years  which  seemed  to  apply  to  the  subjects  I  was 
considering,  and  then  having  marked  them,  went 
back  and  had  them  tabulated  on  a  typewriter 
under  different  headings  such  as  ''Is  God  All?" 
"Does  Evil  Have  Reality?"  etc.  Naturally,  I 
cannot  give  you  in  the  short  space  of  this  book  an 
exhaustive  idea  of  two  years'  work.  I  hope  to 
make  the  book  readable  with  enjoyment,  and 
all  I  can  do  is  to  give  briefly  some  of  the  con- 
clusions I  have  reached  and  the  process  of  reason- 
ing by  which  I  have  reached  them.  These  reasons 
may  be  faulty — as  I  have  said,  I  am  not  a  college 
professor,  and  I  am  only  hoping  that  I  may  in 
my  reasoning  and  speculation  strike  that  note 
which  will  reach  the  heart  of  every  man  and 
woman  who  wishes  to  know,  and  indicate  to  each 
a  little  segment  of  the  long  pathway  to  truth. 

Possibly  this  is  the  place  where  I  can  best  say 
that  Christian  Science  has  not  always  been 
successful  with  me  or  with  my  friends,  in  removing 
a  sense  of  illness.  This,  however,  to  me  does  not 
in  any  degree  invalidate  belief  in  its  doctrines,  so 


20  Christian  Science 

far  as  I  am  concerned  and  so  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  accept  them. 

I  beHeve  that  any  good  medical  man  will  tell 
you,  and  you  will  believe  him,  that  there  are  times 
when  the  condition  of  a  patient  is  so  susceptible  to 
disease  that  medicines  cannot  reach  and  cure. 
Why,  if  you  give  the  privilege  of  using  this  claim 
to  the  medical  man,  should  it  be  denied  to  the 
Science  practitioner?  May  it  not  be  true  that 
the  failures  of  Science  to  cure  are  due  not  to  the 
principles  on  which  it  depends  (which,  if  true  in 
one  instance  or  several,  must  be  true  in  all),  but  to 
the  condition  of  mental  susceptibility  to,  or 
apprehension  of  the  truth  on  the  part  of  the 
patient?  Think  it  over,  in  a  fair-minded  spirit 
of  wanting  to  know  the  truth  and  see  what  con- 
clusions you  reach.  Personally,  I  expect  that  in 
the  course  of  my  life,  I  will  be  troubled  with  the 
same  sort  of  things  men  have  been  troubled  with 
for  ages,  and  in  some  instances  I  will  doubtless 
have  trouble  in  overcoming  them.  I  realize  that 
this,  from  a  Christian  Science  viewpoint,  is  a 
poor  thought,  but,  frankly,  it  does  not  seem 
probable  to  me — even  though  it  be  a  possibility 
— that  I  can  get  enough  of  the  truth  in  a  short 
lifetime  here,  to  free  me  entirely  from  the  curse  of 
Adam.  None  the  less,  I  am  going  to  try  for  that 
very  thing  and  where  I  fail  I  shall  know  that  the 
fault  is  my  own  plus  that  of  accumulated  opinion 
(of  which  more  hereafter)  and  not  assess  the 
blame  against  God.     Also  I  expect  that  the  time 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts        2i 

will  come  when  I  will  have  to  pass  on  and  join  the 
friends  who  have  gone  before.  The  Bible  cer- 
tainly tells  me  that  the  time  will  come  when  death 
will  be  overcome,  but  that  also  is  one  of  the 
things  that  does  not  to  me  seem  probable  within 
the  limits  of  my  present  life,  even  though  it  be 
stated  as  a  possibility  of  Christian  Science,  and 
is  also  a  reasonable  possibility,  as  I  shall  hope  to 
show.  However,  when  "death"  comes,  for  me, 
I  am  sure  that  it  will  be  due  not  to  a  fault  in 
infinite  Principle,  but  in  the  understanding  which 
I  have  been  able  to  gain  of  the  working  of  that 
Principle. 

And  yet,  I  have  heard  people  who  seriously 
advanced,  as  an  argument  against  Christian 
Science,  that  Mrs.  Eddy  is  dead! 

Possibly  this  is  also  the  time  and  place  where 
I  can  best  speak  of  that  type  of  mind,  which,  when 
it  is  confronted  with  reasonable  proof  of  the  cure 
by  Christian  Science  of  so-called  incurable  disease 
(so  diagnosed  by  competent  physicians),  takes 
refuge  in  the  statement  that  ''the  diagnosis  was 
mistaken."  Now  obviously,  to  the  Christian 
Scientist  who  does  not  believe  in  the  reality  of 
any  disease,  this  is  a  true  statement  of  fact;  but 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  person  who  believes 
disease  to  be  a  fact,  it  appears,  to  me  at  least,  to 
be  the  acme  of  absurdity,  for  obviously  the  argu- 
ment can  be  used  with  just  as  great  a  show  of 
legitimacy  against  the  physician  who  himself 
diagnoses  a  disease  and  then  cures  it,  as  it  can 


22  Christian  Science 

against  the  Christian  Scientist  who  cures  the 
same  disease  after  being  told  what  it  appears  to 
be  to  a  physician.  Furthermore,  the  person  who 
advances  such  an  argument  has,  as  a  rule,  no 
means  of  knowing  as  a  fact  that  his  statement  is 
true.  In  other  words,  the  argument  to  me  appears 
self -destructive  and  only  a  means  of  shutting  one 
person's  mouth  and  another's  ears. 

Personally,  I  have  made  a  very  careful  exami- 
nation of  evidence  in  favor  of  the  cure  of  disease 
by  Christian  Science,  and,  for  myself,  am  con- 
vinced that  so-called  diseases  which  have  been 
called  incurable  by  competent  physicians,  have 
been  cured  by  metaphysical  means.  Also  so  far 
as  I  am  concerned,  I  do  not  propose  to  dodge  the 
issue  by  saying  that,  within  the  limits  of  medical 
knowledge,  a  mistake  has  been  made  in  naming 
the  particular  difficulty  under  which  the  patient 
suffered. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  appears  to  be  ample 
evidence  of  the  cure  of  disease  by  what  w^ere 
supposed  to  be  medical  means,  but  I  am  rather 
suspicious,  as  will  hereafter  appear,  that  the 
medicine  part  of  the  cure  had  less  to  do  with  the 
cure  than  is  commonly  thought.  Here  I  admit  in 
advance  of  having  someone  call  my  attention  to 
it,  that  beyond  my  intuitions  and  speculations, 
and  those  of  some  doctors,  I  have  no  means  of 
knowing  that  to  be  a  fact.  The  whole  difficulty 
appears  to  me  to  grow  out  of  a  disinclination  on 
one  side  of  the  argument  to  place  any  reliance  in 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts        23 

testimony  not  confirmed  by  the  physical  senses, 
and  a  disinclination  on  the  other  side  of  the 
argument  to  place  reliance  on  any  testimony  not 
confirmed  by  the  spiritual  senses. 

For  one  whose  consciousness  is  bounded  by 
that  which  he  feels,  sees,  hears,  tastes,  and  smells, 
it  is  difficult  to  credit  the  interposition  of  any 
power  not  manifested  by  these  means;  and  yet 
any  man  who  stops  to  think  will  see  that  there 
are  many  things  he  knows  which  come  to  him  in 
other  ways.  All  he  has  to  do  in  order  to  take 
them  into  active  consciousness  is  to  recognize 
them,  and  admit  their  reality.  Somewhere  in  the 
Bible,  faith  is  defined  as  "the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for" — evidently  it  was  intended  to  ascribe 
suhsta7ice  to  things  we  hope  for,  in  other  words — 
reality.  May  it  not  be  that  the  only  way  in 
which  we  can  obtain  the  things  hoped  for  as  a 
reality,  is  through  the  exercise  of  spiritual  faculty — 
in  other  words,  of  faith  ?  I  admit  it  as  my  experi- 
ence that  so  far  as  the  physical  senses  are  con- 
cerned, I  have  never  seen  a  demonstration  in 
Christian  Science  about  which  I  could  not  have 
constructed  an  argument  to  prove  that  it  would 
have  happened  from  other  causes;  but  the  same 
thing  is  true  of  any  cure  I  ever  heard  of,  brought 
about  by  medical  science — for  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  preponderance  of  probability  is  against 
a  pill,  one  sixteenth  of  an  inch  across,  producing 
such  wide-spread  effects  as  are  at  times  ascribed 
to  it.     In  other  words,  it  takes  a  lack 'of  faith  in 


24  Christian  Science 

truth  to  believe  in  many  things  commonly  believed, 
much  greater,  to  my  mind,  than  the  faith  required 
to  believe  in  metaphysical  cure. 

Just  as  a  thought  for  you  to  turn  over  in  your 
mind,  may  it  not  be  true  that  we  are  placed  here 
between  truth  and  not  truth,  and  that  the  exercise 
of  that  faith  about  which  we  have  just  been  talk- 
ing, which  seems  to  be  a  necessity  toward  any  con- 
viction; or  rather  that  the  direction  in  which  that 
faith  is  or  is  not  exercised,  conditions  that  which 
most  seems  reality  to  us  {i.  e.,  spirit  or  matter)? 
Think  over  also  that  place  in  the  Bible  where  it 
says,  ''This  is  the  condemnation  that  light  is  come 
into  the  world,"  and  "Men  loved  darkness,  [i.  e., 
absence  of  true  consciousness]  rather  than  the 
light" — i.  e.j  failed  to  exercise  their  faith ^  toward 
bringing  the  substance  of  light  into  consciousness 
and  therefore  inertly  seemed  to  bring  darkness  or 
not  truth  into  reality  in  their  consciousness  rather 
than  the  substance  of  things  which  all  men  hope 
for  spiritually.  I  am  free  to  confess  that  the 
reality  of  metaphysical  cure  to  me  could  be  argued 
against.  I  could  construct  an  argument  against 
it  myself. 

None  the  less,  it  is  subvStance  and  reality  to 
me  because  I  have  relied  on  and  tested  it. 

No  argument  could  go  any  further  with  me  than 

'  I  have  worded  the  above  in  the  way  I  have,  because  I  cannot 
consistently  speak  of  "exercising"  faith  toward  the  untrue. 
Wherever  I  speak  of  such  "exercise"  in  this  book  please  under- 
stand "Absence  of  the  exercise  of  faith  toward  truth." 


A  Few  Preliminary  Thoughts        25 

mine  to  prove  its  reality,  though  I  may  discover 
something  new  to-morrow — but  beyond  any  argu- 
ment is  the  inner  conviction  and  the  demonstra- 
tion, which  never  was  mine  as  regards  other 
beHefs.  As  I  have  said  before,  let  any  man  try  it 
sincerely  and  see  if  his  experience  is  not  the  same. 
Now  that  I  have  written  the  last  part  of  the 
preceding  paragraph,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have 
stated  what  appears  to  me  at  least,  to  be  a  Principle, 
on  which  the  ideas  formulated  in  this  book  must 
be  founded;  that  Principle  being,  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  the  human  mind  to  construct  an 
absolutely  incontrovertible  argument  for  or  against 
either  spiritual  or  material  fact, — or  to  be  more 
specific,  for  or  against  metaphysical  healing, — 
which  is  that  portion  of  spiritual  truth  which  we 
happen  now  to  be  talking  about.  No  matter 
what  I  might  say,  an  opponent  could  construct 
an  argument  against  it,  and  vice  versa.  The 
only  justification  I  can  see  therefore  for  the  state- 
ment of  opinions  on  such  subjects  is  that  the 
human  mind  can  lead  one  in  the  direction  (up  to  the 
present  limit  of  its  understanding  and  no  further) 
of  that  spiritual  *' intuition"  which  supplies  the 
lack  of  reasoning  when  the  limit  of  human  reason 
is  reached.  In  a  word,  the  finite  cannot  compre- 
hend the  Infinite,  and  while  at  some  future  time 
the  one  may  be  consciously  merged  in  the  other, 
it  is  only  (in  the  ordinary  course  of  events)  by 
degrees  that  we  approach  the  condition  of  con- 
sciousness  where   we   know   the   truth   and   the 


26  Christian  Science 

truth  can  set  us  free.  Further  it  appears  to  me 
that  only  by  the  exercise  of  faith  can  we  progress 
beyond  the  bounds  of  human  reason  and  learn 
more  of  the  truth.  If  you  will  consider  the  progress 
of  natural  science  so  called  in  the  past  hundred 
years  you  will  see  that  those  who  have  pressed 
forward  and  pushed  back  the  bounds  of  ignorance 
are  those  who  exercised  imagination — which  may 
be  another  name  for  faith  in  relation  to  the  "things 
unseen"  concerning  which  they  sought  evidence. 
But  don't  you  think  lack  of  faith  in  the  true  may 
possibly  also  bring  into  seeming  reality  a  false 
consciousness,  the  untrue  ?  Think  of  the  outworn 
beliefs  of  the  past  which  seemed  reality  to  those 
who  held  them ! 

Therefore,  I  say  again  that  all  I  hope  to  do  is  to 
give  you  the  reasoning  which  led  me  to  conviction 
with  the  full  understanding  both  on  your  part  and 
mine  that  neither  your  mind  nor  mine  can  go 
beyond  a  certain  limit,  and  that  the  inferences 
derived  from  such  reasoning  as  we  can  do  must 
be  used  as  the  basis  of  faith  in  "the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for  and  the  evidence  of  things 
unseen."  These  inferences  plus  demonstration 
are  sufficient  to  guide  the  pathway  of  any  man. 


CHAPTER  II. 

*'IS  GOD  ALL?" 

I  had  not  read  many  pages  in  Mrs.  Eddy's 
book,  Science  and  Health  with  Key  to  the  ScriptureSy 
before  I  became  convinced  that  the  whole  volume 
could  be  comprised  in  three  words,  i.  e.,  "God  is 
All,"  for  as  I  shall  subsequently  show,  to  my 
mind,  the  supplementary  statement  ''God  is 
Good  "  is  a  logical  necessity  once  the  first  mentioned 
statement  is  admitted.  Further,  I  became  con- 
vinced that  if  one  admitted  Mrs.  Eddy's  premises 
the  admission  of  her  conclusions  became  a  logical 
necessity.  Therefore,  I  laid  the  book  down  and 
turned  my  mind  toward  the  consideration  of  her 
main  premise,  i.  e.  "God  is  All,"  for  at  that  time 
it  did  not  seem  to  me,  nor  does  it  seem  to  me 
now,  that  I  am  called  upon  to  accept,  without 
examination,  any  statement  which  another  may 
choose  to  make  to  me  regarding  a  subject,  which  of 
necessity  conditions  everything  which  may  sub- 
sequently be  said ;  as  any  opinion  concerning  Deity 
must.  It  appears  to  me  that  one  could  make  almost 
any  statement  concerning  the  nature  of  Deity 
and  found  a  philosophy  on  it,  and  if  his  premises 

27 


28  Christian  Science 

were  not  attacked  could  make  his  conclusions 
seem  probable.  *'No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any- 
time" the  Scriptures  tell  us,  which  to  my  mind  is 
simply  another  way  of  saying  that  the  finite  and 
limited  cannot  understand  the  Infinite  and  un- 
limited. Many  ideas  of  God  have  existed  down 
through  the  ages,  and  usually  the  conditions 
under  which  men  lived  were  limited  very  largely 
by  the  idea  which  they  held  on  that  subject. 
Therefore  I  said  to  myself,  "It  seems  to  me  most 
important  for  my  own  individual  progress  that  I 
should  see  just  what  my  idea  of  God  is,  and 
while  I  know  that  I  cannot,  because  of  limitation, 
understand  him  fully,  it  seems  to  me  most  impor- 
tant that  I  should  get  the  highest  concept  which 
my  present  state  of  intelligence  and  the  knowledge 
at  my  disposal  will  permit — always  bearing  in 
mind  that  there  will  be  an  un-understood  some- 
thing toward  which  I  will  have  to  exercise  the 
quality  of  faith  (and  intuition)  and  not  the  faculty 
of  logic  or  carnal  mind." 

So  I  set  to  work  seriously  (having  many  times 
before  considered  it  casually),  to  see  just  what 
idea  I  had  of  God,  irrespective  of  Mrs.  Eddy.  I 
said  to  myself,  "  If  I  reach  her  premises,  I  will  read 
and  study  her  book  further.  If  I  cannot,  there 
will  be  no  need  for  we  will  never  agree." 

The  first  thing  thereafter  that  came  to  mind 
was  the  old  question  which  so  many  have  dis- 
cussed before  me,  "Does  God  Exist?"  for  mani- 
festly if  I  could  not  convince  myself  of  that,  the 


"Is  God  All?"  29 

rest  of  the  premise  became  non-existent.  Now 
as  I  have  before  specifically  stated,  I  do  not  pre- 
tend to  philosophical  wisdom,  and  it  may  appear 
presumptuous  in  me  to  approach  a  question  on 
which  so  many  others  have  failed.  Please  bear 
in  mind,  therefore,  that  I  am  only  trying  to  state 
things  which  are  satisfactory  to  me,  and  lead  me 
to  the  point  where  I  am  content  to  leave  reason 
behind  and  trust  to  faith,  intuition,  and  demon- 
stration. These  reasons  may  not  be  sufficient  to 
another,  but  they  may  help  that  other  to  progress 
further  than  I  have  in  reasoning  to  the  point 
where  he  is  content  to  leave  reason  behind  as  I 
have  been.  I  am  adopting  the  platform  for  no 
one  but  m3^self. 

First  of  all,  then,  I  record  my  conviction,  which 
I  seem  to  hold  in  common  with  nearly  all  men, 
that  there  is  a  God — that  alone  is  sufficient,  for 
me  personally,  but  lest  I  be  accused  of  failing  in  a 
step  of  importance  to  use  that  limited  instrument 
* 'human  reason,"  I  also  submit  for  consideration 
the  following,  which  is  neither  a  new  or  an  original 
argument.  I  am  not  claiming  originality — merely 
striving  to  state  clearly  for  the  comprehension  of 
myself  or  some  other  common  man. 

Let  us  start  with  the  premise,  that,  as  Mrs. 
Eddy  says,  all  the  sensible  world  around  us  is 
unreal  and  non-existent — what  then  remains? 
I  think  anyone  will  admit  that  independent  of  the 
world  of  sense,  there  is  a  world  of  ideas.  Mani- 
festly every  person  has  many  ideas  which  have 


30  Christian  Science 

not  in  any  way  sprung  from  the  testimony  of  the 
senses,  either  his  own  or  those  of  another.  Take 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  for  instance.  Very 
well,  we  are  agreed,  and  Mrs.  Eddy  agrees,  that 
spiritual  ideas  are  real.  Let  us  then  for  the 
moment  take  the  attitude  of  the  true  agnostic 
and  doubt  the  existence  of  everything — including 
ideas.  What  remains?  It  appears  to  me  that 
even  the  most  extreme  agnostic  will  be  forced  to 
admit  that  it  is  not  possible  to  have  even  an 
illusion  of  an  idea  (granting  his  position  that 
ideas  have  not  actual  existence)  without  having 
something  real  which  perceives.  In  other  words 
it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  there  can  be 
no  perception  without  a  perceiver,  and  that  when 
I  appear  to  have  ideas,  you  can  deny  the  ideas, 
but  you  have  difficulty  in  denying  the  "I." 
Otherwise,  what  is  it  that  has  the  idea  of  denying 
something?  In  other  words,  if  I  perceive,  I 
exist — cogito  ergo  sum — and  if  I  exist,  then  so  do 
you,  and  so  do  all  the  other  people  who  have  ever 
been  in  the  world  exist,  though  not  as  seemingly 
they  do,  in  a  state  of  separation  from  God.  Where 
did  they  come  from?  Naturally,  you  say  from 
something  which  exists,  since  like  produces  like. 
Then  can  you  not  perceive  that  when  you  have 
named  that  thing  from  which  all  that  exists  has 
sprung,  you  have  but  called  God  by  another 
name?  This  may  not  be  satisfactory  to  you — for 
myself,  I  feel  that  there  is  much  more  to  be  said 
some  day  which  I  now  do  not  know — but  for  me, 


"Is  God  All?"  31 

this  represents  the  limit  of  reasoning  on  this 
matter,  and  beyond  that  I  am  content  to  leave 
reason  behind,  and  say  ''not  by  might,  nor  by 
power,  but  my  [thy]  spirit,  saith  the  Lord." 

Again,  can  you  name  sny  final  cause  of  anything? 
If  you  will  sit  down  and  think  carefully,  I  think 
you  will  undoubtedly  conclude  that  all  of  the 
things  you  call  causes  and  laws  are  but  observa- 
tions of  the  way  an  unknown  cause  acts;  of  which 
cause  you  can  know  nothing  save  through  spiritual 
understanding  and  which  you  cannot  name 
other  than  to  say,  "It  is  God  who  does  it.*'  I  could 
form  numerous  examples  to  illustrate  this  fact, 
but  prefer  to  leave  it  to  your  own  thought. 

So,  thus  far  I  came  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  I 
could  know  that  there  is  a  God.  But  what  kind  of 
a  God  is  He  ?  Again  I  express  my  inner  conviction, 
which  theoretically  I  seem  to  hold  in  common  with 
nearly  every  other  man,  that  he  is  an  infinite 
God  and  altogether  Good,  but  lest  I  again  be 
accused  of  failing  in  an  important  step  to  use 
that  instrument  ''human  reason,"  I  submit  the 
following. 

First,  however,  let  me  digress  for  a  moment  to 
make  a  few  remarks  concerning  the  word  "Infinite." 
Frankly,  it  is  a  word  which  conveys  no  concrete 
meaning  to  me  whatever,  and  I  doubt  whether 
there  is  any  one  of  my  readers  who  understands 
just  what  it  means.  For  instance,  I  sit  down  in 
my  chair  of  an  evening  and  try  to  think  of  infinite 
space — my  mind  goes  out,  and  out,  and  out,  and 


32  Christian  Science 

out  in  an  unending  series,  and  then  comes  back 
like  Noah's  dove  to  the  ark  to  rest  because  it 
finds  no  place  where  it  can  rest  the  sole  of  its 
foot.  Try  it  and  see.  So  I  say  that  the  word 
Infinite  is  simply  a  term  I  use  in  my  ignorance, 
to  cover  that  which  I  do  not  and  cannot  under- 
stand. Perhaps  some  day  I  shall;  for  the  Bible 
says,  "This  is  life  eternal  that  they  might  know 
thee  the  only  true  God"  (John  17-3).  But  for 
the  present,  please  understand  that  I  know  that 
being  limited  and  bounded  myself  (in  my  present 
condition  of  consciousness)  I  cannot  understand 
fully  that  which  is  unlimited  and  unbounded. 
Therefore,  when  I  use  the  term  "Infinite,"  it  is 
intended  to  convey  a  confession  of  my  inability 
at  the  present  time  to  comprehend  the  word. 

Returning  now  to  the  discussion  of  the  concep- 
tion of  God,  which  seems  to  be  the  highest  of 
which  I  can  to-day  conceive: — it  seems  to  me 
that  He  who  is  the  source  of  all  the  existences  I 
have  previously  mentioned,  must  always  have 
existed.  I  cannot  conceive  of  that  which  is 
created  out  of  nothing,  and  if  the  God  I  wish  to 
know  was  created  by  another,  then  that  other 
must  be  the  source  of  life.  Therefore,  I  say, 
that  it  seems  to  me  that  God  must  always  have 
existed.  In  other  words,  that  he  has  existed 
throughout  infinite  time.  I  know  there  is  a 
conflict  of  terms  here,  for  time  is  a  concept  of 
limitation  and  therefore  cannot  be  infinite.  But 
can  you  express  it  otherwise?     I  cannot  conceive 


"Is  God  All?'*  33 

of  infinite  time  any  more  than  I  can  of  infinite 
space,  but  for  the  reasons  I  have  stated,  it  seems 
to  me  that  such  a  thing  must  be.  The  conception 
of  a  circle  which  so  many  use  to  typify  that  which 
is  without  beginning  and  Vv^ithout  end,  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  meet  the  facts,  for  after  all  the 
area  of  that  circle  is  limited,  and  there  must 
have  been  a  time  when  the  line  bounding  it  did 
not  exist.  Therefore,  it  cannot  truly  be  said  to 
be  without  beginning  and  without  end,  in  time. 

So  then,  I  conclude  that  God  has  existed  always, 
and  if  He  has  existed  always,  it  seems  to  me  that 
He  must  have  always  had  infinite  power  in  order 
to  sustain  His  existence.  Can  you  conceive  of  a 
being  who  could  sustain  his  life  throughout  infinite 
time,  unless  his  knowledge  and  power  had  been 
infinite  ? 

There  is  one  idea  which  the  word  ''Infinite" 
does  convey  to  me,  and  that  is,  the  idea  that  if  a 
thing  be  infinite,  there  is  no  room  for  anything 
else.  Think  of  something  which  fills  infinite 
space.  Yes,  I  know  that  the  words  are  contradic- 
tions but  can  you  express  it  any  other  way? 
Could  there  be  anything  else  anywhere?  So  it 
seems  to  me  that  if  God's  power  be  infinite,  there 
can  be  no  room  for  any  other  power. 

Consider  the  matter  in  another  light.  Suppose 
that  for  a  fraction  of  a  second  a  power  opposed 
to  the  supreme  Power  could  exist.  Can  you  not 
see  that  the  mere  idea  of  opposition  to  supreme 
Power  carries  with  it  the  necessity,  that  while  the 

3 


34  Christian  Science 

opposing  power  was,  supreme  Power  would  have 
to  be  in  abeyance,  and  therefore  during  that  time 
that  supreme  Power  would  not  be?  That  if  at 
any  time  His  existence  were  in  abeyance,  though 
only  for  an  instant,  He  would  have  a  beginning 
and  an  end  in  time,  and  therefore  cannot  be 
the  Source  ? 

So  then  I  am  satisfied  to  believe  that  God  is 
All  power,  and  that  there  is  not  and  never  has 
been  a  power  in  opposition  to  His.  I  next  ask 
myself,  "What  kind  of  power  is  God's?"  Is  it 
for  good  or  evil  or  for  both? 

Now  I  know  that  just  here  I  am  going  to  take 
issue  with  some  very  good  friends  who  call  them- 
selves ''Occultists,"  who  hold  that  evil  is  just  the 
opposite  pole  of  good  and  that  both  exist  as 
power  in  God;  but  here  is  how  it  appears  to  me. 
In  order  to  sustain  existence  throughout  infinite 
time,  it  appears  to  me  that  God  must  not  only 
have  been  infinite  power,  but  that  he  must  have 
been  infinite  and  positive  power — indeed  there  is 
not  such  a  thing  as  a  negative  power,  for  a  power 
that  can  be  qualified  as  negative  is  not  power. 
Now  suppose  we  examine  the  characteristics 
of  evil — it  is  J^structive,  unjust,  w/dawful,  and 
produces  ^^whappiness,  and  so  on.  I  have  been 
unable  to  find  a  single  quality  of  evil  which  is  not 
negative,  in  quality  and  effect.  Therefore,  it 
seems  to  me  that  such  could  not  belong  to  the 
power  we  ascribe  to  God  or  indeed  to  any  power 
at  all.     Therefore  I  conclude  that  God  is  Infinite 


"Is  God  All?'^  35 

Power  and  that  that  Infinite  Power  is  altogether 
Good.  Also  that  as  this  Good  power  is  infinite 
{i.  e.,  filling  all),  there  is  no  room  left  for  another 
power  called  evil.  Recurring  to  our  former  argu- 
ment, if  there  were,  God  could  not  have  existed 
always  and  cannot  be  the  Source.  The  same 
argument  can  be  applied  to  infinite  Truth. 

"A  house  divided  against  a  house,  falleth 
(Luke  11-17).  Surely  a  God  containing  within 
Himself  both  evil  and  good  would  be  as  man 
seems  to  be  to-day,  "A  house  divided  against 
itself." 

Now  let  us  see  what  the  final  conclusions  we 
reach  are.  We  seem  to  have  persuaded  ourselves 
that  (i)  God  is  Infinite  =  ALL.  (2)  He  is 
Infinite  Power  =  ALL  POWER.  (3)  He  is  In- 
finite Good  =  ALL  AND  ALTOGETHER  GOOD. 
(4)  He  is  Infinite  Truth  =  ALL  AND  ALTO- 
GETHER TRUTH,  etc.,  down  through  all  the 
positive  qualities  and  characteristics  you  can 
think  of. 

Now  suppose  we  go  back  to  the  geometry  class 
for  a  few  minutes.  You  remember  we  learned 
there: — ''Things  equal  to  the  same  thing  are 
equal  to  each  other."  So  let  us  state  our  prob- 
lem, viz.: 

GOD     =     ALL 

GOD     =     GOOD,    TRUTH,    SPIRIT, 

and  any  other  positive  quali- 
ties. 


3^  Christian  Science 

Therefore  ALL  =  GOOD,  TRUTH,  SPIRIT, 
and  any  other  positive  quali- 
ties. 

Suppose  we  state  the  opposite  of  the  proposition. 
GOD     =     ALL 

But  GOD  is  not  EVIL :  UNTRUTH :  MATTER : 
or  any  other  negative  quahties. 

Therefore,  ALL  is  not  EVIL:  UNTRUTH: 
MATTER,  or  any  other  negative  quahties. 

Therefore  EVIL:  UNTRUTH:  MATTER,  do 
not  exist,  except  as  a  false  state  of  consciousness, 
which  is  not  in  harmony  with  GOD  and  has  no 
true  reality.  They  are  merely  the  false  sense  of  the 
absence  of  something,  which  in  reality  is  all  present. 

You  see  it  appears  to  me  that  by  our  course  of 
reasoning  we  have  come  to  exactly  the  conclusions 
reached  by  Mrs.  Eddy  in  Science  and  Health. 
As  I  have  said  previously,  I  do  not  pretend  to 
philosophical  reasoning  powers,  and  the  things 
I  have  said  may  have  faults  in  them  that  you  will 
see  and  that  I  do  not;  but  personally,  this  is  as 
far  as  my  limited  understanding,  or  spiritual 
perception,  will  carry  me.  The  things  I  have 
said  give  me  personally  sufficient  basis  on  which 
to  dismiss  reasoning  at  this  point  and  trust  to 
that  faith  which  is  the  "substance  of  things 
hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen."  To 
bring  my  conclusions  into  real  substance  to  my 
consciousness,  I  must  exercise  that  faith  toward 
spiritual  and  not  toward  material  things. 


**Is  God  All?"  37 

There  are  seeming  contradictions  in  this  course 
of  reasoning,  of  which  I  will  say  more  later;  but 
mark  this — they  are  contradictions  which  come 
about  because  of  the  reluctance  one  has  to  dis- 
credit the  testimony  of  the  physical  senses;  and 
further  emphasize  this  to  yourself,  as  between 
discrediting  the  evidence  of  physical  senses, 
and  denying  the  only  conception  of  God  which  is  a 
reality  to  him,  it  would  seem  as  though  anyone 
would  choose  to  discredit  material  sense  no  matter 
how  difficult  it  may  be  to  do.  It  is  freely  granted 
that  this  observation  is  founded  on  the  conception 
of  God  held  by  each  individual.  Unquestionably 
there  are  conceptions  of  Him  which  do  not  require 
such  denial,  though  to  the  Christian  Scientist 
such  seem  to  be  conceptions  which  fail  to  fully 
express  the  complete  nature  of  Deity,  His  Allness 
and  Altogether  Goodness.  May  it  not  be  also 
as  I  have  elsewhere  hinted,  that  this  is  just  what 
we  must  do  and  that  the  exercise  of  that  faith, 
which  will  make  substance  of  those  things  hoped 
for,  lies  between  adherence  (i.  e. ,  faith  in)  our  idea 
of  God  (which  doubtless  is  still  imperfect)  and 
our  adherence  {i.  e.,  lack  of  faith  in  truth)  to 
the  testimony  of  sense;  the  exercise  of  that  faith 
toward  truth  or  its  absence  bringing  into  con- 
sciousness the  substance  of  what  we  hope  for 
(whether  it  be  "material"  or  spiritual).  May 
it  not  further  be  true  that  the  reason  mankind 
is  where  it  is  to-day  is  because  faith  has  not 
been  exercised  toward  truth?     ''This  is  the  con- 


38  Christian  Science 

demnation  that  light  is  come  into  the  world  and 
men  loved  darkness  rather  than  light  because  their 
deeds  were  evil"  (John  3-17)  i.  e.y  they  exercise' 
faith  toward  darkness. 

Without  any  wish  to  criticize  I  cannot  see 
clearly  how  anyone  who  has  stated  a  belief  in  an 
INFINITE,  i.  e.,  ALL,  God,  can  admit  another 
power  called  *'evil, "  or  that  any  power  or  quality 
not  positive  has  existence  save  as  a  false  sense  of 
the  absence  of  something  really  present, — a  state 
of  consciousness  in  man  which  fails  to  perceive 
the  ever-present  truth.  And  I  know  that  the 
only  wish  to  do  so  must  arise  from  the  testimony 
of  the  physical  senses.  I  quote  here  from  Huxley 
(Huxley's  Essays  on  Controverted  Questions,  page 
.181): 

Whoever  asserts  the  existence  of  an  omnipotent 
Deity,  that  he  made  and  sustains  all  things,  and  is 
the  Causa  causarum,  cannot,  without  a  contradiction 
in  terms,  assert  that  there  is  any  cause  independent  of 
him;  and  it  is  a  mere  subterfuge  to  assert  that  the  cause 
of  all  things  can  ''permit"  one  of  these  things  to  be  an 
independent  cause.  ^ 

Here  let  me  say  just  a  word  to  those  very  good 
people  who  fear  losing  what  they  call  **a  personal 
God,"  if  they  accept  a  concept  of  Him  such  as 
I  have  outlined.  Let  me  say  clearly  that  if  by 
a  personal  God,  a  God  who  is  a  person  is  meant, 

*  See  footnote  page  24. 

»  Reprinted  with  the  permission  of  D.  Appleton  Sc  Co. 


'*Is  God  All?''  39 

I  have  nothing  to  say — for  the  idea  I  have  outHned 
certainly  does  destroy  such  an  idea.  If  on  the 
other  hand,  by  a  personal  God  is  meant  one  who 
has  a  personal  interest  in  His  children  so  real, 
that  of  all  the  millions  of  them  there  is  not  one 
whom  He  loves  less  than  another — not  one  whose 
interests  are  unknown  to  Him,  or  uncared  for  by 
Him,  not  one  to  whom  individually  He  is  not 
ready  to  supply,  and  does  supply  all  that  is  really 
worth  while  in  life — then  I  do  most  emphatically 
deny  the  fear.  Considering  the  millions  of  God's 
children  existing  here  and  elsewhere,  I  personally 
cannot  see  how  a  God  who  is  less  than  ALL 
codld  give  them  that  which  we  seek  in  a  personal 
God.  This  conception  of  Him,  to  me,  and  I 
believe  to  any  man,  draws  Him  immeasurably 
closer  than  before,  for  He  is  in  a  real  sense  every- 
where, and  we  are  a  part  of  Him.  How  could  we 
exist,  except  as  a  part  of  Him,  if  He  be  Infinite, 
i.e.  All  ?  We  need  no  other  friend  to  help,  for  He 
is  All  and  always  near  if  we  but  raise  our  con- 
sciousness to  perceive  Him.  "In  Him  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being"  (Bible). 

Now  I  am  well  aware  what  some  of  you  are 
saying,  for  I  said  the  same  thing  after  my  large 
gentleman  friend  woke  up,  ''That  all  sounds 
reasonable  enough,  but  what  becomes  of  what  we 
are  doing  here  in  life,  if  this  be  true,  and  how  can 
we  have  a  perception  of  evil  unless  that  which 
perceives  it,  exists?  And  if  it  exists,  how  can  it 
perceive  evil  unless  it  have  the  germ  of  evil  within 


40  Christian  Science 

itself?  And  if  it  have,  then  something  must  exist 
that  is  evil. "  And  ''We  would  like  to^i^ar  some- 
thing about  what  some  other  people,  people  like 
Huxley,  Spinoza,  Tyndall,  etc.,  have  to  say  about 
this  thing  of  the  existence  of  matter,  and  if  they 
think  that  maybe  it  doesn't  exist,  is  there  any 
reason  for  thinking  that  that  may  be  true  except 
a  lot  of  abstract  reasoning  which  starts  with  some- 
thing we  know  nothing  about  anyway? "  etc.,  etc. 
Yes,  I  asked  them  all  and  then  some — and  I  am 
later  going  to  give  you  the  answers  I  made  to 
myself.  Perhaps  they  won't  be  good  answers  to 
you  but  they  did  satisfy  me  to  some  extent  and 
perhaps  they  will  help  you  to  get  some  answer 
that  will  be  more  satisfactory  for  you,  but  that 
must  come  all  in  good  time.  I  must  get  through 
with  one  thing  before  I  can  begin  with  another. 
First,  for  the  benefit  of  those  good  people  who  have 
been  brought  up  as  I  have,  to  look  to  the  Bible 
for  the  answer  to  most  of  their  problems,  I  want 
to  quote  some  passages,  which  seem  to  me  to  have 
been  written  with  the  intention  of  teaching  an  idea 
of  God  similar  to  that  I  have  just  outlined.  Please 
read  and  study  the  quotations.  From  them  you 
can  learn  far  more  than  from  the  book  itself. 

The  passages  to  which  I  refer  follow,  and  in 
reading  them,  please  understand  that  I  can  see 
all  through  the  Bible  a  literal  a7id  a  spiritual 
meaning,  both  of  which  may  be  true.  As  I  have 
said,  these  passages  were  taken  by  me  from  the 
Bible  during  two  years  of  study.     I  have  used 


"Is  God  All?"  41 

them  as  a  means  of  demonstrating  the  power  of 
Truth.  -Try  the  sam_e  method  and  see  what 
interpretations  you  reach  for  yourself.  I  do  not 
ask  you  to  accept  mine  for  each  man  must  tread 
his  own  pathway  to  Truth. 

I  end  this  chapter  by  saying,  **Try  this  way 
now  if  you  have  not  before,  for  only  by  demon- 
stration of  its  effects  can  you  know  that  giving 
all  power  to  God  as  a  reality  in  your  life  will 
accomplish  many  wonderful  things  in  which  you 
cannot  believe  till  you  have  seen  them  face  to 
face  instead  of  through  a  glass  darkly." 

IS    GOD   ALL   AND   ALTOGETHER   GOOD? 

Note:  Only  a  few  quotations  bearing  on  this  subject  are 
given  here  but  anyone  who  will  study  the  Bible  in  the  light  of 
these  beliefs  will  find  innumerable  places  where  the  nature  of 
God  is  plainly  set  forth. 

Deut.  4:35.  Unto  thee  it  was  shewed,  that  thou 
mightest  know  that  the  Lord,  he  is  God;  there  is  none 
else  beside  him.  [None  =  no  one;  pretty  inclusive; 
sounds  to  me  like  ALL.] 

Hebrews  7:3.  Without  Father,  without  mother, 
without  descent,  having  neither  beginning  of  days, 
nor  end  of  life;  but  made  like  unto  the  Son  of  God; 
abideth  a  priest  continually. 

Deut.  32:3,  4.  I  will  publish  the  name  of  the 
Lord;  ascribe  ye  greatness  unto  our  God.  He  is  the 
Rock,  his  work  is  perfect:  for  all  his  ways  are  judg- 
ment: a  God  of  truth  and  without  iniquity  [Sounds 
like  altogether  Good],  just  and  right  is  he. 


42  Christian  Science 

From  the  three  preceding.  ^//  =  without  iniquity. 
Can  a  Good  tree  bring  forth  evil  fruit  ? 

Jeremiah  23:23,  24.  Am  I  a  God  at  hand,  saith 
the  Lord,  and  not  a  God  afar  off?  Can  any  hide 
himself  in  secret  places  that  I  shall  not  see  him? 
saith  the  Lord.  Do  not  I  fill  heaven  and  earth  ?  saith 
the  Lord. 

I  John  4:7,  8.  Beloved,  let  us  love  one  another: 
for  love  is  of  God;  and  everyone  that  loveth  is  born 
of  God,  and  knoweth  God.  He  that  loveth  not 
knoweth  not  God ;  for  God  is  love.  Can  a  good  tree 
bring  forth  evil  fruit? 

Acts  17:28,  29.  For  in  Him  we  live,  and  move 
and  have  our  being;  Forasmuch  then  as  we  are  the 
offspring  of  God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  God- 
head is  like  unto  gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by 
art  and  man's  device. — [Bodies  of  men.] 

Habakkuk  1:12,  13.  Art  thou  not  from  ever- 
lasting, 0  Lord,  my  God,  mine  Holy  One?  we  shall 
not  die  [consciousness  of  continuity  of  life],  0  Lord, 
thou  hast  ordained  them  for  judgment;  and  0  mighty 
God,  thou  hast  established  them  for  correction.  Thou 
art  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  evil,  and  canst  not 
look  on  iniquity  [In  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have 
our  being.  Can  a  good  tree  bring  forth  evil  fruit  ?] ; 
wherefore  lookest  thou  upon  them  that  deal  treacher- 
ously, and  boldest  thy  tongue  when  the  wicked  de- 
voureth  the  man  that  is  more  righteous  than  he? 

Gen.  1 :  26.  And  God  said,  Let  us  make  man 
in  our  image,  after  our  likeness,  and  let  them  have 
dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl 
of  the  air,  and  over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the  earth, 
and  over  every  creeping  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the 
earth.     Can  a  good  tree  bring  for.h  evil  fruit? 


"Is  God  All?"  43 

Ecc.  3:14,  15.  I  know  that,  whatsoever  God 
doeth,  it  shall  be  for  ever:  nothing  can  be  put  to  it, 
nor  anything  taken  from  it:  and  God  doeth  it,  that 
men  should  fear  before  him.  That  which  hath  been  is 
now;  and  that  which  is  to  be  hath  already  been;  and 
God  requireth  that  which  is  past.  [And  yet  God 
made  All  Good,  so  the  Bible  says;  what  then  of  evil?] 
And  God  saw  everything  that  he  had  made,  and 
behold  it  was  very  good.     Genesis  i :  31. 

Psalm  145:13.  Thy  kingdom  is  an  everlasting 
kingdom,  and  thy  dominion  endureth  throughout  all 
generations. 

Psalm  62 : 1 1 .  God  hath  spoken  once ;  twice  have 
I  heard  this;  that  power  belongeth  unto  God.  [What 
of  the  power  of  evil  ?] 

Isaiah  40:21,  22,  28.  Have  ye  not  known?  have 
ye  not  heard?  hath  it  not  been  told  you  from 
the  beginning?  have  ye  not  understood  from  the 
foundations  of  the  earth?  It  is  he  that  sitteth  upon 
the  circle  of  the  earth,  and  the  inhabitants  thereof 
are  as  grasshoppers;  that  stretcheth  out  the  heavens 
as  a  curtain,  and  spreadeth  them  out  as  a  tent  to 
dwell  in:  Hast  thou  not  known?  Hast  thou  not 
heard,  that  the  ei'erlasting  God,  the  Lord,  the  Creator 
of  the  ends  of  the  earth,  fainteth  not,  neither  is 
weary  ?  there  is  no  searching  of  his  understanding. 

I.  John  2:16.  For  all  that  is  in  the  world,  the 
lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the 
pride  of  life,  is  not  of  the  Father,  but  is  of  the  world. 
[How  plainer  could  it  be  stated  that  the  carnal  law  is 
foolishness  to  God  and  is  man's  law,  not  God's?] 

Numbers  14:21.  But  as  truly  as  I  live,  all  the 
earth  shall  be  filled  with  the  glory  of  the  Lord. 

I.   Kings  8:27.     But  will   God  indeed    dwell    on 


44  Christian  Science 

the  earth?  behold,  the  heaven  and  heaven  of  heavens 
cannot  contain  thee;  how  much  less  this  house  that 
I  have  builded? 

II.  Chronicles  2:6.  But  who  is  able  to  build  him 
an  house,  seeing  the  heaven  and  heaven  of  heavens 
cannot  contain  him?  who  am  I  then,  that  I  should 
build  him  an  house,  save  only  to  burn  sacrifices 
before  him  ? 

II.  Chronicles  6:  i8.  But  will  God  in  very  deed 
dwell  with  men  on  the  earth  ?  behold,  heaven  and  the 
heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain  thee;  how  much 
less  this  house  which  I  have  built ! 

Job  11:7,  8,  9.  Canst  thou  by  searching  find 
out  God?  Canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty  unto 
perfection  ? 

It  is  as  high  as  heaven ;  what  canst  thou  do  ?  deeper 
than  hell;  what  canst  thou  know? 

The  measure  thereof  is  longer  than  the  earth,  and 
broader  than  the  sea. 

Psalm  139:7-12.  Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy 
spirit?  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence?  If 
I  ascend  up  into  heaven,  thou  art  there:  if  I  make 
my  bed  in  hell,  behold  thou  art  there.  If  I  take  the 
wings  of  the  morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  sea;  Even  there  shall  thy  hand  lead  me, 
and  thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me.  If  I  say,  Surely 
the  darkness  [my  sense  of  matter]  shall  cover  me; 
even  the  night  shall  be  light  about  me.  Yea,  the 
darkness  hideth  not  from  thee;  but  the  night  shineth 
as  the  day:  the  darkness  [matter,  untruth]  and  the 
light  [spirit,  truth]  are  both  alike  to  thee.  [If  both 
are  alike,  one  cannot  exist.  Toward  which  do  you 
prefer  to  exercise  your  faith  ?] 

Habakkuk   2:14.     For   the  earth    shall   be   filled 


"Is  God  All?"  45 

with  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  as  the 
waters  cover  the  sea. 

Hebrews  4:12.  For  the  word  of  God  is  quick, 
and  powerful,  and  sharper  than  any  two-edged 
sword,  piercing  even  to  the  dividing  asunder  of  soul 
and  spirit,  and  of  the  joints  and  marrow,  and  is  a 
discemer  of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart. 

James  1:17.  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect 
gift  is  from  above,  and  cometh  down  from  the  Father 
of  lights,  with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither 
shadow  of  turning.     [How  about  evil  ?] 

Job  26: 7,  10,  14.  He  stretcheth  out  the  north 
over  the  empty  place,  and  hangeth  the  earth  upon 
nothing. 

He  hath  compassed  the  waters  with  bounds,  until 
the  day  and  night  come  to  an  end. 

Lo,  these  are  parts  of  his  ways:  but  how  little  a 
portion  is  heard  of  him?  But  the  thunder  of  his 
power  who  can  understand? 

Psalm  19:1.  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of 
God;  and  the  firmament  sheweth  his  handiwork. 

Psalm  90:1.  Lord,  thou  hast  been  our  dwelling 
place  in  all  generations. 

Psalm  91 : 1.  He  that  dwelleth  in  the  secret  place 
of  the  most  High  shall  abide  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Almighty. 

Romans  11:36.  For  of  him,  and  through  him  and 
to  him  are  all  things. 

[In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being.] 


CHAPTER  III. 

CONTRADICTIONS. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  consequences  of  trying  to 
reason  about  the  Infinite,  i.  e.,  what  is  regarded  as 
the  un-understandable,  with  the  human  reason, 
is,  that  we  must  meet  with  contradictions.  I  have 
met  with  them  in  every  system  of  philosophy  I 
have  ever  read.  For  instance,  the  Occultists 
say  that  God  is  both  infinite  evil  and  infinite 
good  (for  saying  that  He  has  within  Himself  both 
good  and  evil  is  equivalent  to  that) ,  and  it  appears 
to  me  that  for  both  Infinite  Good  and  infinite 
evil  to  exist  is  impossible.  Again,  many  good 
Protestant  beliefs  credit  an  infinite  God  who  is 
infinitely  Good  with  first  creating  a  perfect  man 
and  then  permitting  him  to  sin,  after  God  Himself 
had  created  him  in  His  own  image  and  likeness. 
It  seems  impossible  to  me  that  evil,  or  the  tempta- 
tion of  evil,  negativeness,  could  have  come  out  of 
that  which  was  all  good,  or  that  such  a  sequence 
of  events  could  have  proceeded  from  that  which 
was  altogether  good;  or  that  that  which  was  all 
spirit  could  ever  have  produced  matter,  or  that 
infinite  goodness  could  have  ever  sacrificed  His 

46 


Contradictions  47 

son  to  appease  His  anger.  "A  good  tree  cannot 
bring  forth  evil  fruit"  (Bible).  Many  good  people 
believe  these  things  but  without  criticism.  I  say 
I  cannot. 

So,  too,  there  are  things  in  Mrs.  Eddy's  book 
which  seem  to  me  (reasonably  speaking)  to  be  il- 
logical. For  instance,  as  I  have  elsewhere  hinted, 
she  says,  ''Evil  does  not  exist."  I  agree;  then  I 
ask,  *'What  is  it  that  perceives  illusions  of  evil?" 
and  she  answers,  "mortal  mind."  And  I  say, 
''Well,  if  mortal  mind  perceives  illusions  of  evil, 
it  must  itself  be  evil."  And  she  answers,  "Yes, 
it  is."  And  I  say,  "Well,  if  mortal  mind  be  evil, 
something  must  exist  beside  God,  if  God  be  al- 
together Good."  "No,"  she  says,  "mortal  mind 
does  not  exist."  And  I  say,  "Well,  if  mortal 
mind  does  not  exist,  how  can  it  have  perceptions? " 
And  I  don't  get  any  answer  except  that  mortal 
mind  is  a  dream  state,  which  calls  itself  a  dreamer 
but  really  is  non-existent,  which  doesn't  utterly 
satisfy  me  because  even  if  it  be  true,  it  seems  to 
me  that  there  must  be  an  existent  even  though 
negative  and  inert  mind  back  of  a  dream. 

I  have  found  one  man  who  attempts  to  answer  the 
argument  that  there  can  be  no  perception  without 
a  perceiver,  by  saying  that  this  idea  comes  from  a 
confused  state  of  thought,  incident  upon  think- 
ing of  mind  as  something  contained  within  the 
individual.  This  does  not  satisfy  me  because  in 
the  first  place  I  do  not  think  of  mind  in  the  way 
described — and  in  the  second  place  looking  upon 


4^  Christian  Science 

mind  as  an  uncontained  concept,  I  still  cannot 
see  how  that  mind  even  though  uncontained  could 
have  perceptions,  even  though  they  be  percep- 
tions within  mind,  unless  it  had  existence.  I  can 
well  believe  however  that  the  state  of  conscious- 
ness I  am  now  in,  may,  in  point  of  time,  when  com- 
pared with  the  whole  of  my  existence,  be  very 
short.  When  I  go  to  sleep  at  night  I  dream, 
and  my  dreams  are  just  as  logical  and  connected 
to  me  as  my  daily  "life."  The  *' matter"  I 
know  in  dreams  is  just  as  real  to  me  as  the  **  matter" 
I  know  in  the  daytime.  I  find  nothing  impossible 
in  believing  that  the  whole  of  a  *' lifetime"  as 
known  to  you  and  me  is  but  a  "dream"  of  a 
consciousness  which  is  dreaming  inert  and  nega- 
tive {i,  e.,  diffused  mortal  mind)  for  a  time  which 
in  comparison  with  the  whole  of  its  existence  is 
no  longer  than  our  night  time  dreams  are  when 
compared  with  the  whole  of  our  presently  known 
life,  be  it  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  long.  I  can 
plainly  see  that  this  mortal  existence  may  be  a 
dream,  just  as  Mrs.  Eddy  says  it  is — but  I  cannot 
reasonably  explain  to  myself  how  that  dream  can 
be,  unless  there  is  a  real  existent  dreamer  (even 
though  uncontained  and  inactive)  back  of  the 
dream.  None  the  less,  if  asserting  reality  for  that 
dreamer  denies  the  idea  of  God,  which  seems  a 
necessity  to  me,  I  am  ready  to  deny,  even  though 
for  the  time  being  I  can  only  see  through  a  glass 
darkly  and  not  fully  understand. 

Again,    Mrs.   Eddy  says  real  man  is  perfect, 


Contradictions  49 

which  I  think  may  be  true — but  I  say  if  the  real 
man  be  perfect,  and  "mortal  man"  doesn't  exist, 
there  is  to  be  sure  an  incentive  in  putting  off  the 
old  man,  the  carnal  mind  which  is  non-existent, 
and  bringing  it  to  the  point  where  it  will  dis- 
appear and  the  real  or  Christ  man  who  is  not  a 
dreamer  will  appear,  but  how  can  something 
which  is  non-existent  disappear  anyway,  because 
if  it  disappear,  it  must  have  had  appearance  some- 
time, and  so  on.  This  suggests  the  scripture, 
"If  this  earthly  house  of  our  tabernacle  were 
dissolved,"  etc.,  (John). 

Mrs.  Eddy's  book  has  been  called  extremely 
illogical. — On  the  contrary,  to  me  it  is  one  of  the 
most  logical  books  I  have  ever  read.  Perhaps 
in  view  of  the  foregoing,  you  will  fail  to  see  what 
I  mean — but  here  it  is.  Suppose  I  say,  or  Mrs. 
Eddy  admits,  that  the  imperfect  man  exists, 
what  is  the  consequence?  Simply  this,  that 
if  he  exist,  God  cannot  be  All  and  altogether 
good,  for  either  evil  (belief)  came  forth  from  Him, 
or  He  permitted  a  sense  of  the  absence  of  good, 
named  "evil,"  to  exist  and  torture  man,  in  which 
case  He  cannot  be  either  All  or  altogether  good. 
Further  my  inability  to  understand  how  a  non- 
existent thing  can  produce  a  sense  of  the  absence 
of  good  may  he  simply  due  to  the  reluctance  of 
that  part  of  my  being  which  is  writing  this  book 
to  admit  its  own  nothingness  and  to  its  inability 
to  perceive  beyond  the  bounds  of  sense.  In  other 
words,  I  think  the  longer  I  read  Mrs.  Eddy's 


50  Christian  Science 

book,  that  she  saw  the  same  difficulty  that  I  do. 
She  found  it  hard  to  construct  through  the  ob- 
struction of  that  material  instrument,  the  human 
mind,  a  spiritual  statement  of  truth.  But  she 
said,  "J  will  not  deny  my  idea  of  God,  And  if  the 
thing  which  seems  to  exist  in  absence  of  good  comes 
to  me  and  demands  recognition  as  a  reality,  I  will 
deny  it,  for  to  grant  it  is  to  dishonor  the  concep- 
tion of  God  which  is  a  necessity  to  my  life."  In 
other  words,  to  my  mind  the  difference  between  this 
system  and  others  is,  that  while  all  are  illogical 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  human  mind,  Mrs. 
Eddy  denies  the  untruths  of  sense  {i.  e.,  absence 
of  truth)  in  order  to  preserve  her  idea  of  God, 
while  other  systems  have  compromised  with  the 
untruths  of  sense  (absence  of  truth)  and  thereby 
have  destroyed  the  idea  of  an  infinite  God  with 
which  they  originally  started.  Moreover  going 
beyond  the  bounds  of  human  reason  again,  I 
find  that  when  I  act  on  the  principles  set  forth  in 
Mrs.  Eddy's  book,  I  obtain  results  both  in  health 
and  in  peace  of  mind  which  I  can  get  in  no  other 
way,  and  after  all  this  is  the  crux  of  the  whole 
matter;  truth,  if  it  he  truth,  is  demonstrable,  and 
the  ability  to  obtain  results  in  this  way  and  in  no 
other  is  demonstration.     Try  it  yourself  and  see. 

I  must  confess  that  the  Occultist  idea  of  meta- 
physical healing  seems  to  me  to  be  more  logical 
and  capable  of  explanation  than  that  of  the 
Christian  Scientists,  founded  on  the  supposition, 
as  I  understand  it  to  be,  that  there  is  a  conscious 


Contradictions  51 

side  to  every  atom,  and  that  by  effecting  that 
consciousness  or  appealing  to  it  the  reconstruction 
of  tissue,  for  instance,  can  be  effected — never- 
theless, I  have  found,  in  my  own  case  at  least,  that 
results  can  be  accomplished  by  consistently  re- 
garding matter  as  unreal  which  cannot  be  reached 
by  the  other  method.  I  am  forced  therefore  to  the 
conclusion  for  myself,  at  least,  that  there  is  more 
of  truth  in  the  Christian  Science  viewpoint  than 
there  is  in  that  of  the  Occultists. 

Having  said  this,  I  have  said  all  that  I  can  say 
about  the  one  illogicality  which  appears  to  me 
in  my  present  conception  of  Christian  Science 
to  be  in  Mrs.  Eddy's  book.  I  cannot  myself  say 
why,  or  supply  a  good  reason  why  God  should 
permit  us  to  have  this  dream  state  which  appears 
to  cause  so  much  suffering.  I  can  see  that,  from  a 
human  standpoint,  mortals  may  be  (yes,  the  word 
does  imply  existence  which  I  can  only  arbitrarily 
deny,  because  it  conflicts  with  my  conception  of 
God)  spiritually  inert^  sleeping,  dreaming,  as  Mrs. 
Eddy  says,  and  that  these  experiences  will  finally 
awake  our  latent  spiritual  powers  to  their  dynamic 
use  and  to  harmony  with  God's  law.  But 
while  it  may  be  humanly  true  that  no  one  can 
awake  save  by  suffering  and  his  own  experience 
out  of  the  dream,  why  is  it  necessary?  It  is  safe 
none  the  less  to  believe  despite  my  lack  of  under- 
standing that  an  all  powerful  God  created  us 
perfect^  without  any  potentiality  of  illusions, 
and  I  confess  that  for  me  there  is  here  something 


52  Christian  Science 

t;.  '. 

hid  in  the  mind  of  God  and  I  am  content  to  leave 
it  there  till  He  reveals  it,  and  to  go  on  knowing 
that  He  is  altogether  good  and  that  evil  therefore 
cannot  exist,  no  matter  how  real  its  seeming  may  be 
to  human  consciousness  which  is  at  variance 
with  God's  law.  The  Christian  Scientist  prefers 
to  deny  himself  rather  than  to  deny  the  only  idea 
of  God  which  satisfies  his  spiritual  understanding. 
Have  you  ever  thought  in  this  connection  of  the 
passage  **If  any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him 
deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross  and  follow 
me"?  Deny  thyself.  This  does  not  mean,  as  we 
shall  see  later,  denying  anything  good  which  now 
exists  in  life. 

With  this  I  end  this  chapter,  promising  again 
that  I  will  later  give  you  my  own  answers  to  the 
other  queries  I  propounded  in  the  last  part  of  the 
last  chapter,  and  ending  again  with  the  state- 
ment, "Try  this  way  if  you  have  not  and  see  if  you 
do  not  get  results  that  you  can  never  otherwise 
obtain."     "By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 


CHAPTER  IV 

DOES    MATTER    HAVE    REALITY?      CHRISTIAN    SCI- 
ENCE   AND     THE     PHYSICAL     SCIENCES, 
INCLUDING  MEDICINE/ 

I  WISH  to  begin  this  chapter  by  repeating  in  a 
new  form  what  I  have  previously  otherwise 
stated,  viz.:— That  if  one  finds  his  premises  in 
spiritual  fact  and  reasons  inductively,  he  will  prob- 
ably reach  the  same  conclusions  reached  by  Mrs. 
Eddy.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  one  finds  his  prem- 
ises in  physical  sense,  and  reasons  deductively, 
there  is  grave  danger  that  they  will  not  be  reached. 

However,  for  the  sake  of  those  who  wish  to 
argue  from  the  basis  of  known  fact,  there  is  much 
more  to  be  said  for  Mrs.  Eddy*s  doctrine  than  is 
commonly  supposed.  I  am  surprised  to  find  that 
many  if  not  most  persons  are  of  the  opinion  that 
when  Mrs.  Eddy  doubts  the  existence  of  matter, 
she  is  taking  a  completely  new  and  revolutionary 
step  in   the  world's  history.     On  the  contrary, 

I I  have  in  this  chapter  used  the  term  "false  thought"  fre- 
quently.  I  ask  in  reading  that  the  term  "absence  of  thought" 
be  borne  in  mind  and  substituted  as  an  alternate  phrase.  Possibly 
this  may  throw  light  on  the  nature  of  "mortal  mind"  and  the 
"law  of  sin  and  death." 

53 


54  Christian  Science 

some  of  the  sanest  and  most  highly  regarded 
minds  in  the  history  of  the  world  have  entertained 
the  same  doubts;  indeed,  for  myself,  I  can  say 
that  I  have  seldom  read  a  philosophical  work  in 
which  the  author  was  willing  definitely  to  state 
that  he  knew  matter  existed,  or  could  adduce  a 
satisfactory  proof  of  its  existence.  The  attitude 
of  most  of  the  men,  whose  works  I  have  read,  is 
that  they  cannot  prove  that  matter  does  not 
exist,  neither  can  they  prove  that  it  does.  They 
also  say  that  they  cannot  prove  that  Spirit  exists, 
therefore,  they  adopt  one  of  four  attitudes: 
either  they  call  themselves  agnostics  and  attempt 
to  doubt  everything;  or  they  believe  in  material 
life  to  the  exclusion  of  Spirit,  because  they  can 
see,  taste,  feel,  hear,  and  smell  material  life;  or 
they  believe  in  a  mixture  of  spiritual  life  and 
material  life  because  they  can  see,  taste,  feel,  hear, 
or  smell  material  life,  and  don*t  like  the  sensations 
— hoping  for  something  better;  or  they  believe 
in  spiritual  life  to  the  exclusion  of  material,  which 
to  me  seems  the  attitude  which  soonest  leads 
to  that  knowledge  of  good  which  is  eternal  life. 
And  again,  I  ask,  ''Is  not  this  just  the  kind  of  a 
situation  you  would  logically  expect  to  find,  if, 
as  before  surmised,  we  are  placed  here  between 
truth  and  not  truth;  are  expected  to  use  our  human 
reason,  only  up  to  a  certain  point,  and  beyond 
that  point,  to  depend  for  our  knowledge  on  the 
faith  (or  lack  of  faith)  which  brings  into  substance 
the  things  hoped  for?" 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         55 

If  we  were  able  to  prove  those  things  through 
our  physical  senses,  where  would  be  the  province 
of  that  faith  by  which  alone  the  knowledge  of 
the  world  has  been  developed?  I  believe  a  similar 
suggestion  is  made  in  the  Bible  where  it  says  that 
we  hope  for  the  eternal  things  unseen,  but  if  we 
could  see  them  there  would  be  no  need  of  hoping. 

Again  let  me  remind  you  that  it  has  taken  just 
as  much  of  faith,  or  lack  of  faith,  to  believe  some 
of  the  things  known  to-day  by  Orthodox  Science, 
before  they  were  hiown  by  proof,  as  it  does  to-day 
to  beHeve  in  metaphysical  cure  of  disease  before 
its  methods  are  charted.  And  I  repeat,  is  it  not 
also  true  that  your  belief  will  depend  on  whether 
you  exercise  faith  toward  truth  or  exercise  it  not 
at  all,  believing  solely  on  the  testimony  of  sense? 

"Where  your  treasure  is,  there  will  your  heart 
be  also."  Mankind's  treasure  is  and  its  faith  has 
been  exercised  toward  material  things  {i.  e.,  it  has 
not  been  "exercised"  toward  Spirit).  They  have 
"loved  darkness  rather  than  light,"  hence,  ma- 
terial things  appear  more  real  than  spiritual  things 
to  them,  and  this  is  the  condemnation. 

But  recurring  to  the  things  to  be  said  in  favor 
of  Mrs.  Eddy's  doctrine  from  a  material  point  of 
view,  I  speak  again  of  Huxley.  Now,  Mr.  Huxley, 
while  many  disagree  with  him,  I  think  will  be 
admitted  as  among  the  sane,  and  as  of  a  keen, 
analytical,  incisive  type  of  mind.  I  find  that  on 
page  166  of  his  Essays  on  Controverted  Questions 
he  says  anent  the  bounds  of  physical  science: 


56  Christian  Science 

Take  the  simplest  possible  example,  the  feeling 
of  redness.  Physical  science  tells  us  that  it  commonly 
arises  as  a  consequence  of  molecular  changes  propa- 
gated from  the  eye  to  a  certain  part  of  the  sub- 
stance of  the  brain  when  vibrations  of  the  luminiferous 
ether  of  a  certain  character  fall  upon  the  retina.  Let 
us  suppose  the  process  of  physical  analysis  pushed 
so  far  that  one  could  view  the  last  link  of  this  chain  of 
molecules,  watch  their  movement  as  if  they  were 
billiard  balls,  weigh  them,  measure  them,  and  know 
all  that  is  physically  knowable  about  them.  Well, 
even  in  that  case  we  should  be  just  as  far  from  being 
able  to  include  the  resulting  phenomena  of  conscious- 
ness, the  feeling  of  redness,  within  the  hounds  of 
physical  science  as  we  are  at  present,  ^ 

Now  my  advice  to  you  is  to  stop  for  a  few 
moments  and  let  this  soak  in.  I  had  to,  and  after 
it  had  soaked  for  a  time,  I  said  to  myself — what 
does  this  mean?  Why,  it  just  means  this,  that 
the  quality  of  redness  in  a  thing  is  possibly  not 
a  quality  of  the  thing  itself  but  something  supplied 
to  the  thing  by  a  certain  something  outside  the 
possibility  (at  present  at  least)  of  understanding 
through  the  physical  sciences.  Mr.  Huxley  goes 
on  to  doubt  whether  there  is  any  such  thing,  and 
therefore  not  being  able  to  prove  to  himself 
the  reality  of  either  Spirit  or  matter  (and  no 
wonder,  since  Spirit  is  incognizable  to  the  physical 
senses)  **  corruption  cannot  inherit  incorruptlon'* 
(Bible),  he  calls  himself  an  "agnostic."     If  having 

*  Reprinted  with  the  permission  of  D.  Appleton  &  Co. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality  ?         57 

reasoned  to  this  limit,  he  had  used  the  faith 
which  is  the  ''substance  of  things  hoped  for," 
and  exercised  it  in  the  direction  of  Spirit,  he  would 
have  called  himself  an  "idealist,"  which  is  really 
another  name  for  a  Christian  Scientist.  He 
failed  to  exercise  it  toward  Spirit,  and  therefore 
he  had  to  be  either  an  agnostic  or  a  materialist. 
And  again  I  ask,  is  not  this  just  such  a  condition 
as  you  would  expect  to  find  if  as  previously  hinted 
we  may  be  placed  here  by  our  own  lack  of  know- 
ledge, without  the  ability  of  actually  proving 
these  things  through  the  medium  of  the  physical 
senses  and  with  the  obligation  placed  upon  us  to 
exercise  that  ''faith  which  is  the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for,"  in  the  direction  of  spiritual 
truth?.  Existence,  as  I  shall  subsequently  say, 
seems  to  me  to  be  a  continuous  succession  of 
states  of  consciousness.  That  which  you  are 
not  conscious  of,  to  you,  does  not  exist.  If  you 
were  not  conscious  of  a  sense  of  matter,  and  all 
other  men  in  the  world  were  likewise,  matter 
would  not  even  seem  to  exist.  But  of  that  more 
hereafter. 

Let  us  go  back  for  the  moment  to  Mr.  Huxley's 
statement  regarding  the  fact  that  the  feeling  of 
redness  may  not  be  a  quality  of  a  thing  itself, 
and  lest  there  be  any  doubt  of  his  attitude  as 
regards  the  existence  of  matter,  let  me  quote 
again  from  him  to  the  effect  that  "Matter  is  the 
hypothetical  substance  of  physical  phenomena." 
In  other  words,  while  he  does  not  know  whether 


58  Christian  Science 

it  does  or  does  not  exist,  it  is  from  his  point  of 
view  merely  something  which  he  uses  to  account 
for  his  sensations.  An  hypothesis  you  know 
is  something  that  always  goes  about  with  an 
*'^/"  hung  around  its  neck  like  a  millstone  around 
the  neck  of  a  drowning  cat.  What  Mr.  Huxley  in 
effect  says  is,  "If  my  sensations  be  true,  then  mat- 
ter must  be  a  fact, "  but  as  seen  above  he  also  says 
that  his  sensations  may  not  be  true,  for  while  he 
has  the  sensation  that  redness  is  a  quality  inherent 
in  things,  he  proves  by  reason  that  his  sensations 
in  that  regard  are  possibly  untrue.  Therefore, 
his  dying  cat  being  dead,  his  argument  is  the 
millstone.  He  does  not  assert  the  existence  or 
non-existence  of  qualities  in  thi?igs.  He  simply 
says,  "I  do  not  know.  I  cannot  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  matter." 

But  let  us  recur  again  to  the  statement  that  the 
feeling  of  redness  may  not  be  quality  inherent  in  a 
thing,  but  a  perception  of  something  outside  of 
physical  science,  and  let  us  call  that  thing  "mind,  " 
which  is  as  good  a  name  for  it  as  any  other  and 
far  more  satisfactory  than  the  agnostic  belief  in 
nothing.  What  are  the  consequences  logically 
of  Mr.  Huxley's  statement?  Why,  simply  this: 
The  quality  of  redness  may  be  not  a  quality  of  a 
thing  but  something  supplied  to  that  thing  by 
mind  (Mr.  Huxley  makes  no  assertion  one  way  or 
the  other),  and  if  the  quality  of  redness,  why 
not  the  quality  of  hardness,  and  why  not  the  qual- 
ity of  denseness,  and  the  quality  of  blueness,  and 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         59 

the  quality  of  swollen  jaw,  or  any  other  quality 
you  may  wish  to  name?  Now,  think  a  minute. 
Take  a  chair.  Think  of  it.  It  appears  to  be  a 
red  chair,  but  Mr.  Huxley  says  the  redness  may 
not  be  in  the  chair — he  doesn't  say  where  it  is 
but  I  have  supplied  the  mind  he  left  out,  and  am 
exercising  my  jaith  toward  it  and  not  toward 
**  matter, "  since  no  proof  is  possible  save  by  de- 
monstration. Exercising  your  faith  also  in  this 
direction,  take  all  the  qualities  of  the  chair: 
weight,  density,  height, — name  them  all,  good  or 
bad,  and  you  can  do  the  same  thing,  so  that 
the  final  consequence  of  Mr.  Huxley's  remark 
is  that  you  can  and  have,  by  faith  exercised  toward 
mind,  subtracted  all  the  qualities  of  the  chair 
and  perceived  that  they  are  not^  things  in  the 
chair  but  ideas  in  mind;  and  by  this  I  mean 
God  {Universal  mind)  as  regards  the  true  ideas y 
and  man's  false  consciousiiess  of  these  ideas  as 
regards  the  untrue  ones. 

Stop  again  and  think.  What  then  becomes  of 
the  chair?  Plainly  it  has  been  translated  from  a 
thing  into  a  concept  of  mind.  Without  qualities 
in  itself  it  has  no  objective  (so-called)  existence. 
Take  your  body  instead  of  the  chair  and  go 
through  the  same  process.  What  is  the  result? 
Plainly  that  the  body  is  a  concept  of  mind.  Con- 
versely it  would  appear  that  carnal,  mortal  mind 
is  that  seeming  mind  which  ascribes  qualities  to 

^  Without  the  exercise  of  faith  you  could  at  least  say  "may 
not  be." 


6o  Christian  Science 

things  instead  of  to  ideas.  Mrs.  Eddy  says 
(and  I  agree  with  her)  that  it  is  necessary  in  order 
to  preserve  our  idea  of  God  to  deny  reaHty  to  this 
mind,  but  that  is  not  because  I,  at  least,  under- 
stand how  a  non-existent  mind  can  produce  even 
illusions,  but  frankly  because  it  seems  necessary  if 
I  am  to  be  true  to  my  idea  of  God,  and  because  I 
would  rather  deny  the  testimony  of  my  material 
senses  than  deny  what  the  Bible  and  my  spiritual 
perceptions  teach  me  of  Him. 

I  am  simply  going  through  this  course  of  reason- 
ing in  order  to  show  that  in  asserting  that  matter 
does  not  have  reality,  Mrs.  Eddy  is  taking  a  step 
which  is  not  so  revolutionary  as  it  seems,  for  quite 
evidently  Mr.  Huxley's  opinions,  and  I  may  say 
the  opinions  of  many  of  the  world's  brightest 
minds,  when  reduced  to  what  they  really  mean, 
come  very  close  to  being  the  same  as  those  of 
Christian  Science,  as  we  have  seen. 

I  was  very  much  surprised  the  other  day  to 
have  a  friend  of  mine  who  has  spent  most  of  his 
life  in  studying  scientific  electricity  say  to  me, 
''I  do  not  see  how  anyone  can  assert  the  existence 
of  matter."  Then  he  went  on  to  give  his  reasons. 
I  suggest  that  you  try  the  same  thing  with  some 
of  your  scientific  friends  and  see  what  answers 
you  get. 

Mrs.  Eddy  merely  asserts,  on  the  evidence  of  her 
spiritual  senses,  what  others,  using  human  logic 
as  a  basis,  say  they  are  in  "doubt  about."  Is  this 
not  a  good  example  again  of  the  fact  that  faith, 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         6i 

understanding,  and  demonstration  condition  your 
world  ? 

Returning  to  the  chair  from  which  we  have 
abstracted  all  qualities,  as  an  objective  reality, 
what  finally  remains  of  the  chair,  after  this 
process  has  been  completed?  Nothing  of  the 
chair  as  you  knew  it,  but  mark  this,  there  still 
remains  the  idea  of  that  chair  and  there  still 
remains  the  idea  of  any  useful  and  good  thing 
you  may  have  been  accustomed  to.  So  Mrs. 
Eddy  says  that,  in  reaHty,  we  Hve  in  a  world  of  the 
ideas  of  God,  God's  thoughts  or  children.  You 
ask  as  I  did,  ''Why,  then,  does  everyone  see  things 
alike?" 

How  do  you  know  that  they  do  see  things  abso- 
lutely alike?  It  has  been  well  said  that  to  one 
mind  a  stone  is  a  stone  and  nothing  else,  but  to 
another  it  presents  the  universe  of  God.  But 
granting  that  it  be  true  that  all  persons  see  the 
same  thing  in  the  same  way,  can  you  not  account 
for  that  on  the  basis  of  our  original  hypothesis? 
"In  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being. " 
In  other  words,  you,  I,  and  everyone  else  are 
parts  of  the  One  Universal  Mind  and,  naturally, 
we  can  see  nothing  true  that  has  not  existed  always 
in  that  mind.  Consequently,  we  all  see  ideas 
with  Spiritual  mind  on  the  general  plan,  which  has 
always  existed  in  that  mind.  All  being  parts  of 
the  same  whole,  we  see  things  alike. 

But  mark  this  also.  We  seem  to  have  a  false 
sense  of  separation  from  the   One   Mind.     The 


62  Christian  Science 

term  mortal  mind  as  used  by  Mrs.  Eddy  does  not 
mean  just  your  mortal  mind  alone,  but  mortal 
mind  appears  to  be  also  a  universal  mind  which 
has  the  false  sense  of  separateness  from  the  One 
Mind  and  division  into  many  minds — you  might 
speak  of  it  as  the  consensus  of  all  the  false  beliefs 
regarding  matter  which  have  been  held  by  men 
ever  since  man  appeared  in  the  world. 

Consequently,  sharing  as  you  do  in  that  mind, 
also  you  seem  to  not  only  perceive  your  own  false 
beliefs  but  those  of  massed  human  opinion  (false 
consciousness).  You  appear  to  see  false  things 
also  as  other  men  through  material  sense  see 
them.  And  please  note — it  is  the  sense  of  matter 
which  produces  the  sense  of  separation  from  God. 
If  you  ascribed  reality  to  spiritual  ideas,  instead  of 
to  things  which  mortal  sense  objectifies,  you  would 
externalize  the  things  which  are  eternal,  if  any, 
and  would  consciously  know  them  as  within  and 
not  separate  from  the  One  Mind.  There  would  be 
no  separation,  no  "sense  of  matter."  All  this  on 
the  hypothesis  that  all  see  things  alike  in  physical 
sense,  which  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  do  not  grant,  for 
personally  I  believe  that  there  is  a  vast  difference 
in  the  concept  which  different  so-called  human 
minds  have  of  the  same  idea. 

Possibly  here  is  where  many  people  misunder- 
stand Christian  Science,  for  I  find  that  to  many 
it  seems  ridiculous  that  any  one  man  could  pro- 
duce for  himself  all  the  things  which  Mrs.  Eddy 
says  are  illusions  to  him,  out  of  his  own  carnal  mind. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         63 

Anyone  who  understands  Mrs.  Eddy's  doctrine 
in  this  way  is  laboring  under  a  misapprehension, 
for  it  is  very  clear  to  me,  and  I  think  is  clear  to 
Christian  Scientists  also,  that  by  "mortal  mind" 
she  means  J  z^^^  what  I  have  stated,  i.  e.,  that  con- 
sensus of  mortal  opinions,  enforced  by  mortal 
mind,  down  through  the  history  of  milHons  of 
years,  which  the  Bible  calls  the  ''carnal  mind," 
which  is  subject  to  the  *'Law  of  sin  and  death." 

By  this  I  do  not  mean  that  the  eternal  ideas  of 
God  have  been  changed  or  affected,  but  merely 
that  a  human  sense  of  these  true  ideas  has,  by 
means  of  massed  human  opinion,  been  warped  and 
made  untrue,  through  a  sense  of  matter  which 
brings  about  an  untrue  sense  of  separation  from 
God. 

Let  us  see  if  we  can  express  this  in  plainer  terms 
— I  am  simply  trying  to  express  an  idea  of  Mrs. 
Eddy's  Science  which  has  come  to  seem  reasonable 
to  me.  God  is  all  and  spiritual  man  is  his  expres- 
sion (Mrs.  Eddy  also  says  ''reflection").  The 
real  man's  life  is  an  expression  of  God,  there 
being  no  reality  in  so-called  material  things  which 
are  the  thoughts  of  mortals.  All  is  in,  and  of, 
Mind ;  the  One  Mind.  If  you  build  a  church  you 
are  giving  expression  to  an  idea  of  God,  in  so  far  as 
the  church  expresses  beauty  and  truth,  and  the 
advance  of  mankind  has  come  and  will  come  in  a 
truer  conception  and  expression  of  God's  ideas; 
though  the  real  spiritual  man  is  perfect  and  has 
the    potentiality    of    fully  expressing   God    now. 


64  Christian  Science 

But  mortal  mind  (which  cannot  exist  if  God  be 
All,  because  it  is  not  a  likeness  of  God)  has  injected 
into  the  idea  of  a  church,  we  will  say  the  material 
beHef  of  density,  weight,  matter,  the  idea  of 
separation  from  the  One  Mind,  or  any  quality  of 
^Vzharmony  you  may  name,  which  qualities  as  Mr. 
Huxley  again  seems  to  hold  may  not  be  qualities 
of  things,  but  may  be  injected  as  an  idea  of  mortal 
mind.  In  the  same  way,  God's  idea  or  your  body 
exists,  but  it  is  a  perfect  idea  and  the  concepts  of 
negativeness,  matter,  density,  sin,  sickness,  and 
death,  with  their  consequences,  which  seem  to  be 
yours  in  connection  with  it,  are  not  realities  but 
false  concepts  of  mortal  mind,  since  being  inhar- 
monious, they  cannot  be  a  part  of  God's  plan,  if 
He  be  altogether  Good.  In  other  words,  the  One 
Mind  and  its  ideas  are  the  whole  of  existence. 
Nothing  external  to  Mind  (God)  exists,  and  your 
sense  of  separation  from  the  One  Mind  and  of 
evil  (lack  of  spiritual  development)  are  concepts  of 
an  unreal  carnal  dream  which  is  not  of  God  and 
therefore  is  not  existent — a  false  state  of  conscious- 
ness which  would  not  even  seem  to  exist,  if  true 
Mind  (God)  were  fully  understood. 

Let  me  give  you  another  thought  which  has 
come  to  me  lately  regarding  the  end  of  it  all. 

First  let  me  quote: 

This  is  eternal  life  that  they  should  know  thee  [God]. 
At  that  day  ye  shall  know  that  I  am  in  the  Father, 
and  ye  in  me,  and  I  in  you.     John  14:  20. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         65 

I  in  them  and  thou  in  me,  that  they  may  be  made 
perfect  in  one.     John  17:  23. 

That  they  all  may  he  one;  as  thou,  Father,  art  in 
me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us. 
John  17:21. 

Can  you  not  see  that  if  you  knew  Him  (God — 
see  first  verse  above),  that  is,  if  you  had  the 
same  consciousness  He  has,  and  which  He  gave 
you  when  He  expressed  in  you  His  own  image  and 
likeness,  you  would  from  the  standpoint  of  mental 
life  (God  being  All)  have  not  only  the  individual 
consciousness  you  know  to-day,  but  also  that  of  all 
other  men.  You  would  not  only  he  conscious 
of  your  spiritual  identity,  but  you  would  be 
(from  the  viewpoint  that  life  is  mental)  also 
aware  of  the  divine  nature  of  the  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  God  and  of  their  Oneness  with  God  and 
therefore  of  their  Oneness  in  quality  with  yourself 
— and  that  without  the  loss  of  your  individuality. 
In  other  words,  knowing  God — i.  e.,  knowing  your- 
self as  an  emanation  of  God,  or  having  the  same 
consciousness  as  God — would  make  you  and  all 
other  men  ''perfect  in  One^^  and  we  ii.  e.,  all  men) 
would  in  that  state  of  consciousness  ''be  one  "  (and 
at  the  same  time  be  our  individual  selves);  "as 
thou  Father  art  in  me,  and  I  in  Thee,  that  they 
also  may  be  one  in  us."  A  state  of  consciousness 
including,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  individual 
{i.  e.y  they  also  be  one)  and  universal  consciousness. 
You  would,  in  this  consciousness,  lose  a  sense  of 


66  Christian  Science 

separation  but  not  a  sense  of  true  individuality. 
You  would  perfectly  reflect,  or  manifest  as  Mrs. 
Eddy  says,  an  idea  of  universal  Mind.  Also 
things  which  now  seem  external  would  con- 
sciously be  witJiin  and  you  would  in  fact  see  that 
the  mental  impulses  which  give  you  the  effects 
of  matter  (separation  from  God)  are  false. 

Please  remember  that  mankind,  if  life  is  con- 
tinuous, and  it  seems  that  it  must  be,  if  God  be 
Infinite,  must  have  had  a  long  time  in  which  to 
accomplish  the  building  up  of  these  false  beliefs 
which  never  were  if  God  is  All.  Madam  Blavat- 
sky  gives  them  a  tremendously  long  period, 
thus  admitting  their  reality.  And  right  here  let 
me  revert  to  the  statement  formerly  made  to  the 
effect  that  I  have  read  The  Secret  Doctrine.  It  is  a 
work  of  three  huge  volumes.  It  appears  to  me  to 
be  a  relation  of  how  man  came  to  sink  into  this 
illusion  of  matter, — a  history  of  so-called  mortal 
mind  which  is  not  of  God.  For  those  who  are 
not  familiar  with  her  thought,  it  should  perhaps 
be  said  that  it  is  based  on  the  supposition  that 
there  are  different  kinds  of  matter  surrounding  us, 
some  of  the  kinds  being  imperceptible  to  the 
ordinary  physical  senses.  I  believe  this  has  been 
partially  verified  by  Orthodox  Science  and  it 
seems  also  to  be  indicated  in  the  Bible.  When  a 
man  dies,  as  we  call  it,  he  takes  on,  according  to 
Occultist  belief,  a  body  composed  of  all  the  good 
and  all  the  evil,  which  (evil)  he  has  not  destroyed, 
and  for  a  time  pursues  his  development  in  an- 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         67 

other  plane  of  matter  (belief) .  We  are,  according 
to  this  belief,  constantly  surrounded  with  beings 
imperceptible  to  our  physical  senses,  but  per- 
ceptible to  other  latent  and  undeveloped  senses, 
unless  we  develop  our  truly  spiritual  sense  with 
which  to  destroy  them  (rise  in  consciousness  above 
them).  Now,  I  have  no  doubt  that  much  that  is 
written  on  this  subject  is  true  from  a  mortal  mind 
standpoint.  Indeed,  I  have  myself  experienced 
some  things  that  are  difficult  to  account  for  on 
any  other  hypothesis.  Nevertheless,  I  have  come 
to  this  conclusion,  that  the  Secret  Doctrine  is 
the  history  of  carnal,  mortal  mind  and  that  no 
matter  where  you  meet  with  "material"  things, 
be  it  here,  or  on  some  other  plane,  they  are, 
except  as  to  the  ideas  they  dimly  travesty,  with- 
out true  reality.  Madam  Blavatsky  admits  as 
much  and  then  treats  them  as  though  they  were 
real,  while  Mrs.  Eddy  dismisses  the  whole  matter 
with  the  remark  that  life  is  continuous  without 
the  attempt  to  describe  the  conditions  under 
which  it  is  continuous,  and  states  that  the  thing 
to  do  is  to  raise  your  consciousness  above  all 
planes  of  matter. 

I  wish  to  be  very  definitely  understood  as  to  this 
matter  of  Occultism.  I  have  read  many  books  on 
the  subject,  among  them  Blavatsky,  Besant, 
Leadbeater,  Ingalese,  and  Rudolph  Steiner.  I 
have  experienced  for  myself  the  truth  of  much 
that  is  said  in  such  books  as  to  the  existence  of 
super-physical    worlds;    none    the    less,    at    the 


68  Christian  Science 

end  of  years  of  thought,  I  come  to  this  conclusion — 
that  the  '"super-physical"  worlds  described,  are 
none  of  them  ''super-material,"  and  that  at 
the  end  of  the  Occultist's  journey  (as  he  will  tell 
you  himself),  just  as  at  the  end  of  every  other 
journey  in  the  world,  is  the  One  Mind — and 
the  Law  of  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

*'In  my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions," 
but  there  is  but  one  way  to  those  mansions,  the 
way  of  Truth.  Mr.  Rudolph  Steiner,  whose 
works  interest  me  immensely,  has  described  in 
his  Way  of  Initiation,  as  other  Occultists  likewise, 
what  to  them  is  the  shorter  way.  I  do  not  beHeve 
that  even  the  way  thus  described  by  Mr.  Steiner 
is  the  path  our  v/ay  shower,  Christ  Jesus,  trod, 
for  I  believe  that  by  seeking  Spirit  first,  and  having 
interest  in  so-called  material  things  only  as  they 
conduce,  by  avoidance,  to  spiritual  progression  for 
all,  much  of  the  experience  outlined  in  the  Way  of 
Initiation  as  a  necessity  is  found  to  be  only  a  path- 
way to  be  retraced  and  longer  than  the  shortest 
one  to  the  goal;  the  short  way  being  faith  in  the 
Christ  Mind  and  its  power  and  allness.  None  the 
less,  it  appears  to  me  that  Occultists,  as  all  other 
men,  are  seeking  the  ultimate  of  unity  with  God 
by  needlessly  long  pathways  which  through  ex- 
perience will  lead  them  into  the  one  true  path 
trod  by  Christ  Jesus. 

In  one  of  his  books  Mr.  Steiner  states  that 
Spirit  cannot  manifest  except  through  form.  I 
do  not  know  whether  he  would  agree  with  me  or 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         69 

not,  but  to  myself  I  do  not  seem  to  have  said 
anything  essentially  different.  I  have  said,  and 
substantiated  it  with  other  opinions,  that  so- 
called  ''forms"  are  in  reality  not  ''material," 
but  radiata,  mental  phenomena  giving  effect  or 
manifestation  to  Spirit  (God),  and  that  mortal 
man  has  injected  into  these  ideas  a  false  "material" 
sense,  which  seems  to  separate  the  ideas  of  God 
from  the  One  Mind  and  divide  them  into  many 
minds.  Possibly,  I  have  used  the  wrong  term  in 
saying  that  false  ideas  are  "injected  into"  true 
ideas  of  God.  It  may  be  more  scientific  to  say 
that  so-called  mortal  man's  false  consciousness 
reacting  from  harmonious  law  produces  effects 
of  inharmony. 

Please  remember  right  here  again  that  according 
to  the  best  testimony,  mankind  has  had  a  very 
long  time  in  which  to  create  false  impressions. 
I  was  reading  a  book  yesterday  by  a  man  who  is 
well  regarded  and  is  a  close  student  of  these 
matters.  I  refer  to  the  book  on  Cosmic  Relations, 
by  Henry  Holt.  In  it  I  find  a  long  argument,  too 
long  to  quote,  to  the  effect  that  the  organs  of  the 
human  body  have  been  developed  in  response  to 
stimuli  from  without.  For  instance,  he  says  that 
the  development  of  mankind  from  protoplasm 
to  organism  is  much  as  follows : 

The  eye  develops  because  of  the  desire  to  see; 
the  ear  because  of  the  desire  to  hear,  and  all  the 
other  organs  of  the  human  body,  according  to  this 
author,    have    developed    because    of    the    desire 


70  Christian  Science 

of  mankind  to  perceive  external  things.  I  believe 
that  this  is  good  biological  doctrine,  according  to 
the  Orthodox  Scientist  at  the  present  day. 

Let  us  go  back  for  a  moment  to  Mr.  Huxley's 
conclusion  that  the  qualities  of  things  may  not  be 
inherent  in  the  things  themselves  but  may  be 
supplied  to  so-called  things  by  something  out  of 
the  comprehension  of  physical  science.  Let  us 
assume  (for  the  sake  of  argument)  that  this  is 
true,  and  that  ''qualities"  are  ideas.  Can  we 
not  then  state  the  biological  doctrine  as  follows: 

The  mortal  human  mind  {i.  e.,  diffused  mortal 
opinions)  by  exercising  the  "faith  which  is  the 
substance  of  things  hoped  for"  in  the  direction 
of  inert  ''material"  things,  or  rather  by  failing 
to  exercise  it  toward  Spirit,  has  desired  to  see,  in 
the  ideas  of  God,  certain  qualities.  Therefore, 
in  the  course  of  millions  of  years,  it  has  developed 
a  false  idea  of  a  true  organism  called  an  eye, 
which  appears  to  the  human  mind  to  have  the 
ability  of  seeing  things  that  are  in  reality  non- 
existent as  things,  but  are  false  objects  or  the  ab- 
sence of  perfection  in  a  true  mental  plan  of  the 
One  Mind.  In  other  words,  if  it  be  true  that  the 
Orthodox  Biologists  believe  that  mankind  through 
his  desire  to  see  external  things  has  himself  de- 
veloped a  real  something  called  the  human  body  in 
the  course  of  millions  of  years,  is  there  anything 
in  that  theory  more  improbable  or  difficult  to 
believe  than  there  is  in  the  theory  that  some  of  the 
things  the  Biologists  say  exist  externally,  including 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         71 

the  human  sense  of  body,  are  but  false  conceptions 
of  a  false  sense  of  separation  from  God,  not  exter- 
nals, and  the  others,  true  ideas  of  God  not  externals 
to  the  One  Mind?  Cannot  the  testimony  pains- 
takingly and  worthily  gathered  by  Biologists  be 
used  to  support  either  theory  and  is  there  not 
here  another  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  faith  ? 
Frankly  it  seems  to  me  that  it  requires  a  great 
deal  of  so-called  faith  ^  to  accept  the  Orthodox 
Biologist  belief,  and  that  this  is  another  instance 
of  the  fact  that  we  are  placed  between  truth  and 
not  truth,  and  are  expected  to  exercise  ''the  faith 
which  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for"  in 
the  direction  where  we  should  lay  up  our  treasure. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  Biologist  and  the  Christian 
Scientist  are  saying  the  same  things  in  different 
ways.  The  Biologist  in  effect  says,  "Mankind 
has  made  for  himself  a  reality  called  the  ' '  Law  of 
sin  and  death,  "  while  the  Christian  Scientist  says, 
*' Mankind,  in  the  course  of  ages,  has  created  for 
himself  a  so-called  law  "  (and  up  to  this  point  in 
the  statement  he  is  in  agreement  with  the  Biolo- 
gist) "  which  is  not  a  reality  but  an  illusion."  I 
cannot  see  that  there  is  a  particle  of  difference  in 
the  amount  of  faith  required  to  believe  in  the  one 
doctrine  or  the   other,  and  may  it  not  be  true 

'  I  have  tried  throughout  to  indicate  that  it  is  impossible  to 
"exercise  faith"  toward  the  untrue,  since  such  faith  is  merely 
"not  faith  in  the  true,"  or  a  negative  thing, — a  quality  of  carnal 
mind  which  fails  to  know  the  truth.  However  to  convey  my 
meaning  clearly  in  usual  terms,  I  am  forced  to  leave  the  word 
"faith"  in  the  text  in  certain  places. 


^2  Christian  Science 

again  that  mankind,  in  not  exercising  its  faith  in 
the  direction  of  faith  in  the  reahty  of  Spirit,  has 
brought  "matter"  into  seeming  substance  for 
themselves,  whereas  had  they  exercised  that  faith 
in  the  direction  of  Spirit,  they  might  have  brought 
into  substance  in  their  Hves  other  things  more 
worthy  of  hoping  for — a  consciousness  of  One- 
ness with  God?  I  must  be  pardoned  for  emphasiz- 
ing this  so  often  but  it  is  the  root  substance  of  my 
belief.  Is  it  not  possible  further  that  by  turning 
to-day  and  exercising  our  faith  in  the  right  direction, 
we  will  eventually  come  to  a  consciousness  that 
God  is  All,  and  that  all  the  inharmonious  carnal 
laws,  including  germs,  sickness,  and  death  (the 
law  of  belief),  are  but  something  which  so-called 
mortal  man  has  made  for  himself  just  as  the 
Biologists  say  he  has,  but  which  in  sober  truth  is 
no  reality  but  is  of  the  ''wisdom  which  is  fooHsh- 
ness  with  God"? 

Lest  there  be  any  question  as  to  the  at  least 
partial  agreement  of  other  minds  with  some  of 
what  I  am  stating  herein,  I  quote  from  the  book 
previously  mentioned  {i.  e.,  Cosmic  Relations, 
by  Henry  Holt,  vol.  i.,  p.  i6i.  Published  by  the 
Houghton,  Mifflin  Co.)  as  follows: 

Till  lately  we  have  supposed  we  knew  two  worlds — 
one  of  mind,  and  one — which  includes  our  own  bodies 
— external  to  mind.  Each  of  these  has  always  been 
at  bottom  a  mystery,  and  the  relation  between  them 
a  mystery.  Each  produces  phenomena  in  the  other, 
and  yet  to  imagine  mind  and  matter  turning  into  each 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         73 

other  is  very  difficult,  and  until  lately  has  been  im- 
possible. But  now  it  really  does  seem  as  if  the  division 
between  them  might  be  but  superficial  and  often 
merely  one  of  those  provisional  lines  with  which  our 
minds  are  constantly  dividing,  in  the  effort  to  conquer, 
the  essential  unity  of  Nature. 

In  the  chase  that  analysis  and  hypothesis  have 
made  after  the  smallest  particle  of  matter,  they  now 
seem  to  have  chased  all  particles  away  and  found 
nothing  really  there  hut  psychical  influences,  that 
awaken  in  us  the  psychical  effects  which  we  call  resist- 
ance, roughness,  smoothness,  form,  color, '^  etc.,  etc., 
just  as  in  our  visions,  sleeping  or  waking,  we  experience 
those  same  sensations,  without  the  intervention  of  any 
particle  of  ''matter.''  If  there  is,  then,  after  all,  but 
one  source  of  sensation — mind  acting  on  mind, — 
''materialization"  is  not  impossible,  and  there  is 
no  longer  any  necessity  for  reading  libraries  to  find 
out  that  we  don't  know  how  mind  can  act  on  body,  or 
body  on  mind. 

Now,  as,  in  our  experience,  mechanical  energy, 
muscular  energy,  nervous  energy,  heat,  light,  electrical 
power,  and  the  rest,  are  constantly  transmuted  into 
each  other,  is  it  not  easily  conceivable  that  any  one  of 
them  m.ay  be  transmutable  into  resistance  or  pressure? 
Na.y,  a  step  farther,  is  it  improbable  that  the  tele- 
kinetic  force  may  belong  with  the  rest  in  a  mutually 
interchangeable  group,  which  can  produce  on  our 
waking  perceptions,  as  well  as  in  our  dreams,  all  the 
effects  which,  in  certain  combinations,  we  recognize 
as  "matter"?       On  this  hypothesis,  the  force  mani- 

^  These  words  have  been  italicized  by  the  author ;  in  the  orig- 
inal they  are  printed  in  Roman. 


74  Christian  Science 

fested  by  or  through  the  materializers  can  (not 
inconsistently)  be  assumed  to  manifest  itself  as 
"matter, "  including  such  aggregates  of  force  as  we  are 
familiar  with  in  the  forms  which  usually  perform 
certain  functions — as  hands  which  move  things.  .  .  . 
Do  not  our  latest  knowledge  and  best  thinking 
result  in  the  idea — old  in  many  forms — that  we  are 
but  expressions  of  a  measureless  force  which  is  our- 
selves and  also  behind  ourselves?  Would  any  person 
given  to  the  old  phraseology  be  very  fantastic  in 
calling  us  thoughts  of  the  dwi?ie  mind?  ^ 

What  do  the  italicized  words  in  the  above 
quotation  mean  if  not  that  ''matter"  has  no  exist- 
ence as  commonly  understood  ?  Except  that  both 
good  and  evil  are  supposed  to  spring  from  Divine 
Mind  is  there  here  any  essential  departure  from 
Christian  Science  understanding?  Read  care- 
fully and  see  if  you  do  not  reach  this  same 
conclusion  with  reference  to  their  meaning. 
This  seems  to  be  but  another  mode  of  expressing 
Mr.  Huxley's  thought  previously  expressed  with 
reference  to  the  fact  that  qualities  as  such  may 
not  exist  in  things  themselves.  Can  you  perceive 
any  difference  in  sense  between  the  ''matter" 
you  see  in  dreams  and  that  which  you  see  when  you 
are  awake  ? 

Now  I  ask  before  you  go  any  further,  that  you 
read  the  above  quotation  from  Mr.  Holt's  book 
again.  Particularly  that  part  of  it  which  states 
that  science  has  reduced  the  phenomena  of  physics 

^  Reprinted  with  the  permission  of  Mr.  Henry  Holt. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         75 

to  psychic  impulses  without  the  intervention  of 
any  particles  of  matter — then  read  again  what 
Mr.  Huxley  says  about  the  sense  of  redness,  and 
my  comments  thereon. 

After  you  have  done  this,  sit  down  and  think  for 
a  few  moments — and  then  let  me  ask  you  the 
following  questions.  If  it  be  true  that  there  are 
nothing  but  mental  (psychic)  impulses  surround- 
ing us — without  the  interposition  of  matter — 
if  this  be  true,  I  say,  is  there  anything  improbable 
to  you  in  supposing  that  man  himself  by  the  un- 
conscious  lack  of  use  of  mentality  (psychic  inertia) 
alone  (subconscious  mind)  has  produced  all  of  the 
effects  we  commonly  speak  of  as  the  "Laws  of 
Nature, "  such  of  them  as  are  inharmonious  {the 
others  being  of  God),  by  the  aggregate  telepathic 
inertia  in  consciousness,  if  you  wish,  of  his  own 
lack  of  true  thoughts,  throughout  the  millions  of 
years  in  which  he  has  been,  and  by  putting  himself 
in  inert  opposition  in  a  dream  state  to  true  law? 
Underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms,  of  course — 
under  it  all  is  God's  Divine  plan,  distorted  as  the 
understanding  of  that  plan  may  be  by  man's 
errors — the  plan  is  none  the  less  there.  I  know  I 
am  going  to  make  you  laugh  by  what  I  next  say — 
if  you  haven't  given  the  subject  consideration 
before — but  to  me  there  is  nothing  impossible, 
on  the  supposition  that  all  of  human  life  is  (as 
Mr.  Holt  and  Mr.  Huxley  seem  to  state)  a  series 
of  psychic  impulses,  or  if  you  will,  on  the  theory 
that  mortal  man  has  created  his  own  body  to  suit 


76  Christian  Science 

his  own  needs.  I  say,  on  these  suppositions, 
there  is  nothing  inherently  impossible  to  me  in 
going  a  step  farther  and  supposing  that  mortal 
man  has  created  his  own  sense  of  his  inharmonious 
surroundings  (which  on  this  understanding  of 
things  are  purely  mental).  May  it  not  be,  to 
take  a  homely  example,  that  even  the  conscious- 
ness of  uncomfortable,  inharmonious  weather  con- 
ditions is  the  result  not  of  God's  law  but  of  the 
aggregate  inertia  of  man's  own  unconscious  lack 
of  spiritual  mentality  right  down  through  the 
ages — to  the  carnal  man's  opposition,  in  a  dream 
condition  of  consciousness,  to  true  law.^^ 

I  wish  to  be  very  clearly  understood  as  regards 
this  matter  of  the  control  of  the  consciousness 
of  weather  conditions,  otherwise  it  will  seem 
that  I  have  asserted  something  utterly  beyond  the 
bounds  of  understanding  even  though  Jesus 
proved  it  true. — Let  us  suppose  that  some  very 
cold  day  in  winter  you  go  out  of  the  house.  When 
you  first  come  out  you  are  uncomfortable,  and 
very  likely  your  ears  begin  to  smart  with  cold; 
but  you  rub  them  vigorously,  and  between  that 
and  brisk  walking  you  and  your  ears  are  soon 
warm.  I  think  it  will  be  admitted  that  this  is 
within  the  bounds  of  presently  accepted  wisdom. 
Also  probably  there  is  no  one  who  doubts  that 
on  such  a  day  some  persons  will  suffer  from  cold 
much  more  severely  than  others. 

Now  let  us  suppose  for  a  moment  that  every  man 
was   equipped   with   an    "organism"    of   such   a 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality  ?         "]"] 

nature  that  it  responded  instantly  to  vibration 
from  without,  and  accommodated  itself  instantly 
to  all  the  conditions  surrounding  it.  We  are  told 
that  cold  is  but  the  result  of  changes  in  vibration. 
If  so  and  your  "organism"  responded  instantly  to 
external  changes  in  such  a  way  that  you  were 
constantly  in  tune  with  external  vibrations  can  you 
not  see  that  you  would  suffer  no  discomfort? 
You  would  know  that  there  had  been  a  change, 
but  you  would  feel  no  uncomfortable  consequen- 
ces, and  in  proportion  to  your  ability  to  respond 
truly  would  be  your  freedom  from  discomfort. 

Let  us  go  back  for  a  moment  to  the  statement 
that '  *  Life  is  a  series  of  psychical  impulses  without 
the  interposition  of  one  particle  of  matter." 
If  this  be  true — and  there  seem  to  be  very  good 
reasons  for  believing  that  it  may  be — is  it  impossi- 
ble for  you  to  surmise  that  your  sense  of  having 
a  dense  body  is  the  result  of  ignorance  on  your 
part  of  how  to  use  the  "spiritual  (psychical) 
impulses"  which  form  a  part  of  your  own  in- 
dividuality? In  other  words  may  this  not  be  a 
part  of  what  I  have  called  inertia  of  mind  or  "not 
mind,"  and  when  you  learn  to  "know  the  truth" 
in  relation  to  your  consciousness  of  a  body,  so 
that  your  individuality  responds  in  perfect  accord 
with  its  surroundings,  i.  e.,  God's  laws,  will  not  the 
truth  "set  you  free"  in  a  very  real  sense  from  all 
the  suffering  you  seem  to  know  now  merely  be- 
cause you  do  not  nndersta7id?  When  the  day 
comes  that  you  are  in  perfect  accord  with  all 


78  Christian  Science 

your  surroundings,  will  you  not  then  know  that 
God's  law  has  always  been  a  law  of  perfection  of 
which  you  were  always  a  part,  and  that  your  own 
false  sense  of  truth  a7id  that  alone  was  what  seemed 
to  make  you  stand  apart  from  that  law  in  a  re- 
lationship which,  because  of  your  own  lack  of 
understanding,  seemed  to  separate  you  from 
God?  Will  you  not  then  know,  as  you  to-day 
dimly  surmise,  that  matter,  sickness,  and  suffering 
have  no  existence  except  as  a  part  of  a  dream 
which  you  are  having  in  a  false  state  of  con- 
sciousness, inert  to  Truth  and  vibrating  out  of 
tune  with  Truth?  Will  not  death  itself  then  be 
conquered  because  of  your  then  consciousness 
that  you  are  one  with  the  Universe  in  an  in- 
destructible relationship  which,  because  of  your 
perfect  accord  with  Spirit,  can  have  no  breaks  of 
consciousness  and  no  change?  There  will  be  no 
room  for  a  change  of  consciousness  because  your 
own  consciousness  will  be  true  and  therefore  as 
everything  true  is — eternal. 

And  again  if  it  be  true  that  material  life  is 
composed  of  *' psychical  impulses*'  and  "psychical 
inertias"  is  it  not  a  matter  of  conscious7tess  without 
the  interposition  of  one  particle  of  matter,  and 
is  the  Christian  Scientist  not  right  therefore  in 
saying  that  when  your  consciousness  is  raised  so 
that  you  know  the  truth  you  will  be  and  are  set 
free  from  sickness,  i.e.,  respond  to  the  harmony 
of  God's  law  and  therefore  cease  to  suffer,  or 
be  subject  to  the  false  consciousness  which  now 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         79 

causes  disease  because  it  is  out  of  tune?  Again, 
is  not  the  Christian  Scientist  right  in  attempting 
to  do  this  right  now,  as  Jesus  commanded,  and 
considering  the  inertia  of  false  statement  surround- 
ing every  man  is  it  strange  that  sometimes  he 
does  not  at  once  succeed?  If  life  is  solely  mind 
influences  surely  you  can  see  that  this  kind  of 
inertia  and  false  statement  does  not  need  words  to 
carry  its  expression  to  others ;  thought  is  from  this 
viewpoint  the  greatest  influence  in  the  Universe. 
I  can  plainly  account  to  myself  for  all  mortal 
man's  seeming  suffering,  sin,  and  death,  in  away 
that  carries  to  me  utter  conviction — on  the 
ground  that  mortal  man  is  out  of  tune  with  Truth. 
Also  I  know  that  there  is  a  part  of  me  that  to-day 
is  beyond  this  mirage  of  false  appearance,  and 
which  to-day  perfectly  reflects  Truth.  How  to 
account  for  this  thing  which  wishes  me  to  call  it  a 
perceiver,  and  which  seems  to  be  out  of  tune — 
that  is  the  one  question  impossible  for  me  to 
answer.  I  suppose  that  in  attempting  to  explain 
something  we  are  trying  to  reconcile  it  with 
something  known  to  be  Truth,  and  that  this 
false  man  I  seem  to  know  now,  being  himself 
apart  from  Truth  cannot  be  reconciled  to  it  by 
any  operation  of  his  own  testimony,  which  as 
Jesus  says,  proceeding  from  itself  alone,  must  be 
untrue.  That  part  of  me  which  is  beyond  this 
apparent  false  dream  knows  that  God  is  utterly 
and  altogether  good  and  is  All  despite  what  sense 
says  to  the  contrary. 


8o  Christian  Science 

But  frankly  now  on  the  basis  outlined  just 
above  {i.  e.,  life's  psychical  influence)  and  bearing 
the  demonstrations  of  Jesus  in  mind,  is  it  impossible 
for  you  to  see  some  good  reasons  for  the  possibility 
of  spiritual  cure,  and  is  it  impossible  for  you  to 
feel  that  possibly  all  that  is  inharmonious,  or  seems 
to  be  inharmonious,  proceeds  from  the  aggregate 
false  opinions  of  mortal  men  themselves  ? 

Think  it  over. — Think  over  also  what  is  said 
later  herein,  about  the  hypothesis  of  matter  being 
composed  of  "particles,"  and  regarding  the 
possibility  of  some  day  perceiving  that  these 
''particles,"  which  have  never  yet  been  seen,  are 
really  non-existent.  Then  see  if  you  cannot 
surmise  that  (life  being  mental)  you  would,  if 
perfectly  in  tune  with  Divine  Law,  see  as  a  fact  that 
matter  does  not  exist,  because  being  in  perfect 
tune  with  the  Universe,  you  would  not  feel  exter- 
nality, which  perception  now  occurs  because  of 
your  own  inharmony  with  true  law.  You  would 
perceive,  as  a  fact  in  consciousness,  that  you  are  a 
part  of  the  divine  harmony  and  therefore  receive 
none  of  the  impacts  arising  from  the  clash  of  your 
own  inharmony  with  the  harmony  without,  these 
impacts  giving  you  the  effects  of  matter. 

Remember  also  that  mental  (psychic)  influences 
are  probably  communicable  without  speech  and 
that  the  false  opinions  of  men  may  have  an 
unconscious  negative  influence  on  you,  which 
helps  to  set  you  in  opposition  to  God's  law.  On  this 
theory  all  that  is  needed  to  redeem  you  is  some- 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?  8i 

thing  to  free  you  from  false  opinion  and  har- 
monize you  with  law — Understanding.  *'Ye 
shall  know  the  truth  and  the  truth  shall  set  you 
free." 

I  admit  it  is  difficult  to  see  that  discomfort  is  not 
externally  caused,  but  think  this  over  and  see  if  it 
is  impossible  for  you  to  believe  that  all  man's 
discomfort  is  due  to  his  own  inharmony  with  the 
law  of  God.  The  same  temperature  feels  different 
to  different  people,  does  it  not?  Also  ask  your 
physician  if  nervous  troubles  have  increased  since 
the  World  War,  and  see  if  you  can  understand  why. 

A  few  explanatory  sentences  should  perhaps 
be  added  to  these  remarks  in  order  to  make  their 
comprehension  easier. — Natural  Scientists  tell  us 
that  the  whole  universe  is  in  a  state  of  vibration 
at  different  rates.  Such  being  the  case,  it  seems 
evident  to  me  that  two  different  rates  of  vibration 
contacting  one  another  must  produce  impacts 
perceptible  to  mind  (not  necessarily  to  *' sense"). 
On  the  theory  which  I  personally  believe  to  be  a 
true  one  (and  in  this  I  am  supported  by  many) 
that  material  so-called  life  is  exclusively  mental 
(psychical)  impulses  without  a  particle  of  what  we 
call  "matter, "  is  it  unbelievable  to  you  that  man 
could,  in  the  course  of  millions  of  years  (merely 
by  the  inertia  of  his  own  lack  of  intelligence), 
have  put  himself  at  variance  with  God's  law,  and 
thus  have  produced  all  the  sensations  we  are 
accustomed  to  group  under  the  headings  of  sin, 
sickness,  and  death?  Is  it  not  conceivable  to  you 


82  Christian  Science 

that  the  sensations  we  describe  as  "matter"  are 
produced  in  the  same  way?  By  affecting  your 
own  consciousness  of  "an  object"  (i.  e.y  an  idea 
of  the  One  Mind)  through  your  lack  of  harmony 
with  the  law  of  Spirit,  is  it  not  manifest  to  you 
that  you  would  receive  impressions  and  appear 
to  see  qualities  i?i  things  which  in  reality  do  not 
exist  in  tilings  at  all  but  are  solely  the  result  of 
your  own  failure  to  respond — to  your  own  clashing 
with  Truth  {i.  e.,  true  phenomena  of  the  One 
Mind  from  which  you  are  not  in  reality  separate)  ? 
If  you  did  respond  to  Truth  would  you  not  lose 
your  sense  of  "inharmony"  and  cease  to  think  of 
yourself  as  separated  from  Truth,  with  which 
you  would  then  be  in  responsive  accord?  Think 
again  of  paragraph  3,  page  64,  in  this  connection. 

If  it  is  further  supposable  that  in  addition  to 
affecting  his  own  consciousness  negatively,  mortal 
man  has  been  given  "dominion  over  all  the 
earth"  (which  dominion  was  given  to  God's  man 
only)  to  the  extent  of  affecting  action  around  him 
negatively,  the  possibility  that  "  the  faith  which  is 
the  substance  of  things  hoped  for"  can  bring  such 
things  into  seeming  existence  in  a  dream  state  is 
still  more  clearly  understandable.  For  if  that 
be  true,  some  "external"  vibrations  (i.e.,  beliefs 
of  mortal  mind)  to  some  extent  would  be  in  accord 
with  man's  control  of  them  (i.e.,  his  expectations 
or  hopes),  and  he  would  in  the  course  of  his  con- 
tinuous life  inevitably  bring  into  seeming  existence 
the  things  he  sought  to  see,  within  the  limits  of 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         83 

the  underlying  divine  plan.  They,  as  material 
things,  however,  would  not  exist  though  the  under- 
lying idea  of  the  One  Mind  would  continue  to 
exist  and  be  manifest  as  substance.  Man  would 
collectively  represent  the  creator  of  all  environ- 
ment and  to  the  extent  that  he  could  reflect  the 
activity  of  spiritual  man  and  could  affect  the 
things  which  seem  to  be  external,  he  would  destroy 
the  sense  of  separation  from  the  One  Mind  in 
the  whole  of  the  earth  over  which  the  Bible  says 
God's  man  (not  the  Adam  man)  has  dominion. 
All  of  the  phenomena  affected  by  mortal  man, 
contrary  to  God's  law,  would  tend  to  put  the  earth 
seemingly  out  of  tune  with  divine  law.  This 
may  be  what  is  intended  in  the  Bible  where  it 
says  that  ''all  the  foundations  of  the  earth  are 
out  of  joint."  If  it  be  true,  it  seems  to  me  that 
there  is  no  natural  phenomena  of  the  physical 
senses  which  cannot  be  explained  on  the  ground  of 
purely  mortal  man's  impulses  and  inertias.  God's 
plan  is  none  the  less  there  underneath  it  all,  but 
the  Adam  man's  consciousness  and  the  negative 
influence  of  that  consciousness  has  seemijigly 
put  man's  (God's  man's)  rule  of  the  earth  (over 
which  he  has  ''dominion")  out  of  tune  with 
divine  law.  On  this  understanding  the  extreme 
difficulty  of  rising  out  of  present  false  mental 
conceptions  can  plainly  be  seen,  but  it  can  also 
be  seen  that  these  false  conceptions  are  purely 
opinions  not  laws,  and  that  an  understanding  of 
the  true  law  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  will  set  one  free, 


84  Christian  Science 

as  it  did  free  Jesus,  for  it  is  all  a  matter  of  con- 
sciousness, and  the  power  of  the  true  law  is  the 
power  of  God,  which  when  understandingly  ap- 
plied to  the  life  even  of  one  individual  is  stronger 
than  all  the  accumulated  false  opinion  of  the 
ages.  This  is  what  Mrs.  Eddy  means  when  she 
says  that  salvation  is  not  reached  through  the 
powers  of  the  mortal  (human)  mind,  but  must 
come  down  to  those  seeking  it  from  the  divine  One 
Mind.  Mortal  mind  is  this  inertia  and  its  law  is 
the  law  of  sin  and  death;  its  Salvation  under- 
standing through  Christ  of  God. 

Please  do  not  understand '  me  as  having  in  the 
last  paragraph  added  anything  of  power  to  my 
conception  of  the  reason  for  our  difficulties.  I 
hesitated  long  before  writing  the  paragraph 
because  I  saw  that  difficulty  of  writing  it  without 
creating  the  impression  of  power.  ''Power  be- 
longeth  to  God  "  and  man  in  His  image  co-operates 
with  God  and  executes  His  Law.  Jesus  said 
'*  I  and  my  Father  are  one  but  the  Father  is  greater 
than  I."  God  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  in- 
harmony.  All  I  am  saying  is  that  lack  of  under- 
standing (a  negative)  may  possibly  affect  nega- 
tively that  which  appears  falsely  to  be  an  idea 
separate  from  the  One  Mind,  and  that  mortal  man 
may  by  the  inert  drag  of  his  own  lack  of  under- 
standing have  seemingly  impeded  the  spiritual 
(psychic)  impulses  which  God  named  "the  earth" 
and  which  he  gave  to  God's  man  as  his  "dominion," 
so  that  they,  in  common  with  man's  consciousness, 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?  85 

fail  to  respond  to  the  consciousness  of  true  law. 
The  underlying  plan  is  God's,  its  false  execution,  a 
false  consciousness — called  mortal  mind. 

You  say  this  is  speculation.  Granted.  But  if 
we  never  speculate,  and  try  our  speculations  by 
demonstrating  them  in  our  lives,  and  this  can  he 
done,  will  we  ever  do  anything  but  stand  still? 
I  told  you  in  the  Prologue  furthermore  that  I 
was  going  to  speculate. 

May  it  not  be  further  said  that  sickness  is 
produced  in  the  same  way — and  in  fact  that  the 
whole  of  that  which  man  has  been  accustomed  to 
speak  of  as  inharmonious  sensation  proceeding 
from  without  has  in  reality  proceeded  from  so- 
called  mortal  man  collectively — that  the  mortal 
man  may  have  in  fact  all  the  time  been  living, 
so  far  as  sin,  sickness,  and  death  are  concerned 
{i.  e.,  separation  from  God)  from  within  outward, 
instead  of  from  without  inward,  as  has  been 
supposed?  Harmonious  spiritual  influences  alone 
being  from  the  One  Mind. — While  we  only  appear 
falsely  to  be  separated  from  the  law  of  eternal  Life. 
And  may  it  not  be  that  the  aggregate  of  all  false 
opinion  man  made,  is  what  the  Bible  refers  to  as 
**The  law  of  sin  and  death"? 

Anything  which  produces  inharmony  must  be 
false,  since  such  cannot  proceed  forth  from  God. 
May  it  not  further  be  that  the  law  of  God  is 
something  as  yet  unapprehended  by  us  in  fullness 
— which  is  entirely  different  from  that  which  we 
have  called  law — something  entirely  apart  from 


86  Christian  Science 

it  but  underlying  all  reality.  Something  apart 
from  what  we  call  natural  phenomena — at  least 
such  as  produce  pain — which  latter  may  be  simply 
the  aggregate  lack  of  true  opinion  of  the  ages? 
May  it  not  be  that  here  is  a  hint  of  what  we  are 
intended  to  understand  in  Genesis  where  it  is 
said  that  "God  gave  man  dominion  over  all  the 
earth"?  Remember  "Life  is  God  and  Man 
reflects  Him."  Exercise  your  faith  toward  God's 
man  and  make  your  atonement  with  Eternal 
Mind. 

I  ventured  this  opinion  the  other  day  to  a  good 
lady — and  she  remarked  that  she  believed  God 
made  the  snake  so  that  he  would  kill  man  if  man 
was  careless  enough  to  let  said  snake  bite  him. 
This  seemed  to  her  a  conclusive  argument — 
perhaps  it  is  to  her — but  let  us  see.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  God  made  the  idea  of  the  snake — 
that  so  far  as  that  particular  reptile  is  concerned, 
the  idea  was  of  God — but  it  is  by  no  means  clear 
to  me  that  the  beliefs  of  death,  poison,  material 
construction,  and  pain,  which  we  have  connected 
with  the  snake,  came  from  God.  In  fact,  it  is 
very  clear  to  me  that  they  could  not  have  come 
from  Him,  since  God  is  All,  and  God  is  Good.  May 
it  not  be  that  by  the  exercise  of  that  "faith  which 
is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,"  in  the 
direction  of  the  pure  ideas  of  God;  with  relation 
to  the  snake,  we  will  say — man  could  have  in 
the  past  and  still  can  eventually  bring  into  his 
consciousness  a  snake  the  serpent  of  God's  crea- 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         ^j 

tion — ' '  a  wise  idea ' '  which  has  none  of  the  char- 
acteristics which  cannot  have  come  from  God,  if 
God  be  Good  ? 

It  is  commonly  said  that,  "  If  you  put  your  hand 
'into  the  fire  you  will  be  burned, "  and  this  remark 
has  been  used  times  without  number,  as  an 
argument  that  God  is  responsible  for  that  condi- 
tion. I  wonder  if  God  did  make  a  consciousness 
of  fire  that  causes  suffering?  I  wonder  further 
whether  if  we  knew  and  lived  the  spiritual  law 
which  is  God's  Law,  we  would  not  find  within  its 
rule  a  kind  of  fire,  or  a  consciousness  of  fire,  if  you 
wish,  which  would  not  burn  or  injure  ?  * '  Our  God 
is  a  consuming  fire"  (Bible),  consuming  material 
ideas.  I  wonder  again  if  the  consciousness  of  a 
fire  that  inevitably  causes  suffering  to  those 
who  contact  it — is  not  a  part  of  the  carnal  law, 
made  by  the  Adam  belief  which  is  enmity  to  God, 
of  the  false  sense  of  matter — of  that  wisdom 
which  is  "foolishness  with  God" — a  false  concept 
of  the  true  idea,  the  aggregate  of  mortal  man's 
own  lack  of  mentality,  unconsciously  for  ages? 
May  it  not  be  possible  that  this  has  induced  a 
false  condition  in  man,  a  sense  of  separateness  from 
God,  which  puts  him  in  opposition  to  the  spiritual 
law  and  thus  causes  suffering  which  he  can  rise 
above  by  freeing  his  consciousness  and  coming 
into  harmony  with  real  Law? 

Remember  what  Air.  Holt  hints  as  to  psychic 
influence  being  all  without  the  interposition  of 
matter.     Once  more,  I  wonder  if  this  is  not  what 


88  Christian  Science 

is  taught  in  the  Bible  where  it  says,  "These  signs 
shall  follow  them  that  believe;  in  my  name  shall 
they  cast  out  devils;  they  shall  speak  with  new 
tongues ;  they  shall  take  up  serpents;  and  if  they 
drink  any  deadly  thifig  it  shall  not  hurt  them; 
they  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick  and  they  shall 
recover." 

And  how  did  it  happen  that  Paul  was  able  to 
shake  off  into  the  fire,  without  receiving  harm, 
the  viper  which  bit  him? 

While  I  am  about  it,  let  me  quote  a  few  more 
passages  from  the  Bible.  You  really  must  read 
all  of  the  passages  I  have  given  for  only  so  will 
you  get  a  true  basis  for  the  opinions  in  this  book — 
"for  all  that  is  in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the  flesh 
and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of  life,  is 
not  of  the  Father, ' '  but  is  of  the  wisdom  which  is 
"foolishness  with  God" — again — "who  changed 
the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie  and  worshipped  and 
served  the  creature  more  than  the  creator,"  i.  e.^ 
seemingly  reversed  God's  plan. 

In  speaking  of  fire,  my  meaning  might  have 
been  plainer  if  I  had  said,  ' '  I  wonder  whether  God 
did  make  a  man  who  could  be  burned  by  fire, 
or  who  perceives  matter  or  inharmony."  In 
other  words  possibly  all  the  trouble  is  in  mortal 
man's  consciousness,  separated  from  or  in  opposi- 
tion to  God.  In  either  case  it  is  a  question  of 
consciousness,  and  either  expression  covers  the 
meaning,  only  possibly  the  latter  wording  will 
make  it  plainer  to  you. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         89 

We  are  told  by  the  physical  scientists  that 
many  vibrations  of  sound  and  sight  are  im- 
perceptible to  the  sense  organs.  Is  it  impossible 
for  you  to  imagine  that — if  we  could  hear  those 
vibrations,  at  present  imperceptible — we  would 
know  in  fact  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  discord? 
If  I  responded  in  tune  to  the  Universe  is  it  not 
possible  that  fire  would  not  burn  me? 

If  anyone  is  in  doubt  as  to  the  fact  that 
there  are  many  things  surrounding  us  which  our 
senses  do  not  perceive,  I  ask  consideration  for  the 
following. 

I  have  in  the  room  in  which  I  am  sitting  a  very 
sensitive  wireless  set.  I  live  in  Minnesota,  and 
every  day  I  can  hear  a  station  at  Nauen,  Germany, 
sending  to  a  station  in  this  country.  In  experi- 
menting with  the  outfit,  I  have  discovered  that 
I  can  completely  disconnect  the  wires  leading 
to  the  aerial,  and  can  still  hear  these  far  distant 
stations  sending.  It  is  evident,  in  other  words, 
that  the  vibrations  pass  through  the  walls  of  the 
house,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not 
therefore  assume  that  they  also  penetrate  my 
own  "body." 

If  the  facts  I  have  just  stated  had  been  publicly 
set  forth  one  hundred  years  ago,  the  man  stating 
them  would  without  doubt  have  suffered  the 
penalties  of  witchcraft  and  would  have  been  con- 
sidered of  an  unsound  mind. 

Owing  to  increased  understanding,  which  is 
just  what  the  Christian  Scientist  is  striving  to 


90  Christian  Science 

attain,  we  now  consciously  hear  things  which  a 
century  ago  were  not  even  suspected.  Is  it 
not  legitimate  to  surmise  that  a  still  further 
understanding  will  lead  us  to  find  that  there  are 
now  many  influences  entering  into  our  lives  un- 
consciously which  cause  effects  that  are  now 
ascribed  because  of  lack  of  understanding  to 
other  than  their  real  causes?  May  not  many  illnesses 
for  instance  be  thus  ascribed  by  mortal  mind  to 
untrue  causes?  For  what  after  all  do  we  know  of 
causes?  You  say  the  apple  drops  to  the  ground 
because  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  but  if  you  will 
consider  that  statement,  you  will  see  that  you  have 
not  made  a  statement  of  cause,  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion merely  being  an  observation  of  the  way 
an  unknown  cause  operates. 

Just  'as  a  suggestion,  may  it  not  be  that  the 
wonderful  development  in  the  understanding  of 
material  science  accomplished  in  the  last  hundred 
years  will  be  continued  in  the  next  hundred 
years  into  the  field  of  things  that  are  now  com- 
pletely inapprehensible  to  the  senses  and  event- 
ually through  spiritual  understanding  of  the 
effects  in  the  midst  of  which  we  now  live  into  the 
field  of  the  causes  which  produce  these  effects? 
May  not  the  future  development  of  men  lie  in 
the  field  of  the  mind  sciences  and  of  spiritual 
sense  ? 

I  hope  I  have  in  the  last  few  paragraphs  been 
able  to  give  you  some  clear  conception  of  what 
the  terms  "Law  of  sin  and  death"  and  "Law  of 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         91 

the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus"  mean  to  me. 
Perhaps  you  will  see  by  the  illustration  of  the 
snake,  and  by  what  has  been  said  concerning 
fire,  that  while  the  two  are  entirely  distinct  from 
one  another  (corruption  cannot  inherit  incorrup- 
tion),  they  still  seem,  to  the  material  senses,  to  be 
intertwined.  The  full  living  of  one  involves  the 
rejection  and  destruction  of  the  other.  But  it 
does  not  involve  the  destruction  of  the  true  man  who 
reflects  eternal  life. 

If  the  belief  that  man's  aggregate  unconscious 
mentality  controls  consciousness  of  disease,  and 
the  uncomfortable  weather,  seems  beyond  im- 
agination to  you — and  I  have  no  doubt  that  it 
may — I  do  not  ask  you  to  accept  anything  from 
me,  unless  after  careful  thought  your  own  reason 
justifies  you  in  so  doing — I  say,  if  this  spiritual 
premise  seems  impossible  to  you  at  first,  please 
take  this  from  me  at  least:  You  will  find  that 
many  level-headed  people,  not  only  in  Christian 
Science  but  in  other  walks  of  Hfe,  are  either  be- 
lieving or  suspecting  that  this  is  true — so  don't  dis- 
miss the  idea  without  consideration,  as  something 
which  is  too  improbable  to  waste  time  on — for 
it  is  not. 

What  I  am  saying  is  that  if  man's  consciousness 
was  right,  what  he  calls  incompatible  weather 
conditions  wouldn't  he  for  him,  because  he  would 
be  in  tune  with  God. 

Again  I  say,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  that  I 
cannot,  humanly  speaking,  reconcile  the  existence 


92  Christian  Science 

of  a  mind  capable  of  having  false  impressions, 
with  an  altogether  Good  God  who  is  All,  but  I 
affirm  His  goodness  none  the  less,  knowing  that 
the  failure  of  logic  is  viy  failure,  due  to  limitation, 
and  refusing  to  attribute  evil  to  God  since  the 
Bible  and  my  own  spiritual  sense  tell  me  He  is 
*' without  iniquity,"  and  is  also  All.  Hence  ini- 
quity cannot  be  real. 

Had  it  occurred  to  you  that  there  may  be  a 
distinction  in  the  first  and  second  chapters  of 
Genesis  between  the  ''God"  spoken  of  in  the 
first  chapter  and  the  ''  Lord  God  "  spoken  of  in  the 
second  chapter?  I  understand  that  in  the  original 
text,  the  two  words  used  are  different.  Read 
over  the  account  of  the  creation  in  the  second 
chapter  and  see  if  you  do  not  think  it  possible 
that  the  **Lord  God"  spoken  of  in  that  chapter, 
who  created  man  out  of  the  dust  of  the  ground, 
is  not  God  at  all  but  the  Adam  or  dust  belief 
man  ''in  whom  all  die."  May  it  not  be  possible, 
in  other  words,  that  in  the  second  chapter  of 
Genesis,  what  is  spoken  of  as  "God"  is  merely 
the  collective  mind  of  mortal  man  working  out 
through  what  is  designated  in  the  Bible  as  the  '  'Law 
of  sin  and  death"?  In  other  words,  may  this 
not  be  the  inception  of  that  law  of  which  Mr.  Holt 
speaks  in  his  book  and  of  which  we  have  spoken 
herein  as  the  "carnal  law"?  Read  that  place 
where  the  Bible  says,  "Adam  begat  a  son  in  his 
own  likeness  after  his  image,"  and  compare  with 
the  place  where  the  Bible  declares  that   "man 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         93 

was  made  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  God." 
May  not  the  aggregate  of  all  the  {inharmonious) 
psychic  influences  created  by  man  down  through 
the  ages  "without  the  interposition  of  one  portion 
of  matter, "  be  man's  image,  not  God's? 

Again,  going  back  for  a  moment  to  the  Orthodox 
Biologist's  opinion  as  to  the  development  of  the 
human  body.  Had  it  occurred  to  you  that  on 
this  hypothesis  {i,  e.,  the  one  used  in  Mr.  Holt's 
book)  it  would  be  extremely  difficult  to  account 
for  the  development  which  has  occurred  in  the 
process  of  ages  in  things  which  seem  to  us  to  be 
external?  For  instance  if  the  eye  develops 
through  impinging  light,  why  are  not  all  animal 
eyes  the  same  as  men's  eyes,  since  ilie  same  light 
develops  them?  On  the  hypothesis  however 
that  the  so-called  external  things  are  in  reality, 
to  some  extent,  merely  a  state  of  consciousness  in 
man  {ix.^  in  the  carnal  law),  and  as  to  the  rest 
true  ideas  within  the  One  Mind,  such  development 
could  be  accounted  for  on  a  universal  and  a 
universally  applicable  principle.  On  this  hypo- 
thesis, for  instance,  the  statement  in  the  Bible  that 
the  material  sun  will  eventually  pass  away  (this 
quotation  is  elsewhere  hereafter  set  forth  in  this 
book)  could  be  reasonably  accounted  for,  for  if 
that  which  is  material  in  the  sun  is  the  result  of  a 
state  of  consciousness  in  man,  it  will  disappear 
when  that  consciousness  has  been  raised  above 
the  perception  of  material  things,  to  the  full 
understanding   of   the   spiritual   law,    and   to   a 


94  Christian  Science 

perception  of  Oneness  with  God  and  of  true 
spiritual  influences  alone,  which  never  change. 

Recurring  now  in  a  somewhat  different  way  to 
the  modern  doctrine  as  to  the  constitution  of 
matter,  we  are  told  that  laboratory  tests  have 
proven  that  matter  is  composed  of  particles  in 
constant  motion.  If  this  be  true,  is  it  not  neces- 
sarily true  also  that  our  perception  of  matter  is 
untrue,  i.e.,  a  false  state  of  consciousness,  and  can 
God  be  responsible  for  anything  false  (the  carnal 
law  of  sin  and  death)?  We  certainly  do  not  see 
any  particles  in  motion  when  we  look  at  a  tree, 
for  instance,  and  yet  we  are  told  that  the  particles 
in  that  tree  are  in  a  constant  state  of  motion  and 
that  between  these  particles  exists  space  (ether) 
which  we  also  do  not  see.  It  seems  to  me  there- 
fore that  modern  physical  science  has  pretty 
conclusively  proven  that  the  conception  of  matter 
obtained  through  our  physical  senses  is  not  a 
correct  impression. 

Is  it  not  possible  that  if  the  consciousness  of  our 
sense  organs  improved^  to  the  point  where  we 
saw  things  as  they  really  are,  our  conception  of 
our  surroundings  would  be  very  different  from 
what  it  is  now ,  and  that  "matter"  would  be  seen 
in  fact  not  to  exist? 

A  further  reflection  occurs  to  me  in  this  respect, 


*  We  having  injected  false  ideas  unto  God's  thought  of  them 
also.  According  to  the  biological  theory  that  consciousness  has 
improved  in  the  past. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         95 

to  wit : — While  physical  science  tells  us  that  mat- 
ter is  composed  of  particles,  there  is  no  physical  sci- 
entist who  has  ever  lived  who  would  say  that  he 
had  seen  one  of  these  particles.  Even  the  most 
powerful  microscope  in  existence  will  not  enable 
anyone  to  see  the  particles  which  we  are  told 
compose  the  so-called  objective  things  around  us. 
In  other  words,  these  particles  are,  as  Mr.  Huxley 
has  stated  in  the  previous  quotation  in  this  book, 
purely  an  hypothesis  which  it  seems  to  be  neces- 
sary to  assume  as  true  in  order  to  account  for  our 
sensations.  They  are  assumed  {i.  e.^  faith  exer- 
cised toward  them) ,  and  the  whole  theory  of  matter 
founded  on  them.  Why  should  it  not  be  equally 
legitimate  to  found  reality  on  faith  in  God  ? 

Carrying  Mr.  Holt's  doctrine  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  consciousness  of  an  eye  a  little  further 
than  we  have  carried  it,  as  yet,  might  it  not  be 
possible  if  the  idea  of  the  eye  should  be  later 
developed  to  the  point  where  it  could  cognize 
moving  particles  in  matter  (which  would  change 
our  conception  of  matter)  that  a  still  further 
development  would  result  in  perceiving  that  the  so- 
called  particles  (which  at  present  have  never  been 
seen  except  as  hypotheses)  do  not,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  exist  at  all  objectively  (see  Huxley  again), 
and  when  that  stage  of  development  is  reached 
in  the  course  of  the  progress  of  the  biological 
theory,  would  we  not  then  perceive,  as  a  fact  of 
consciousness,  that  we  are  and  always  had  been 
in  truth  living  in  a  world   of  ideas  in  Mind? — 


96  Christian  Science 

at  present  dimmed  by  false  consciousness  and  by  a 
sense  of  separation  from  the  One  Mind. 

Frankly,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  probable  and 
logical  final  conclusions  of  the  present  doctrines 
of  physical  science  (which  conclusions  are  as  yet 
hidden  in  the  realm  of  the  unknown,  but  towards 
which  conclusions  we  are  working  by  means  of 
the  "faith  which  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped 
for")  point  very  suggestively  towards  the  conclu- 
sions of  Christian  Science,  that  matter  as  an 
objective  entity  has  no  existence  and  that  its 
apparent  existence  is  purely  a  matter  of  subjec- 
tive false  consciousness,  misjudging  true  spiritual 
(psychic)  influences.  This  does  not  mean  how- 
ever that  trees,  flowers,  or  any  harmonious  ideas 
have  one  particle  less  of  reality  than  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  ascribe  to  them.  It  simply  means 
that  the  matter  concept  and  concepts  of  death 
connected  with  trees,  flowers,  etc.,  have  no  reality. 

So  far  as  existence  of  "matter"  is  concerned, 
may  we  not  find  a  statement  upon  which  all 
parties  to  the  discussion  will  agree? 

Even  the  most  of  Orthodox  Church  people 
believe  that  after  the  "soul"  has  left  the  "body" 
it  exists  in  a  state  where  Spirit  is  all  and  matter 
is  unknown.  The  belief  of  many  has  been  that 
this  change  takes  place  immediately  at  death, 
but  evidently  all  are  agreed  that  there  is  a  place 
or  a  condition  of  consciousness  where  "matter" 
is  not  known.  Mrs.  Eddy  says  that  our  present 
consciousness  of  "matter"  is  a  false  consciousness 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         97 

out  of  which  we  rise  by  the  operation  of  Spirit 
which  destroys  false  material  sense.  Opposing 
this,  all  Orthodox  Church  people,  in  effect,  say 
that  "matter"  is  a  reality  but  that  there  is  a 
state  of  consciousness  where  it  does  not  exist. 
Personally  it  seems  to  me  more  probable  that  a 
state  of  consciousness  which  seems  as  real  to  me 
as  the  consciousness  of  "matter"  cannot  be 
immediately  removed  by  the  process  we  know  as 
death.  It  seems  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
liberation  from  the  consciousness  of  "matter" 
must  come  about  through  a  gradual  process; 
unless  it  can  be,  as  Jesus  says  it  can  be,  ac- 
complished immediately  through  the  raising  of  our 
consciousness  at  once  to  an  understanding  of  the 
spiritual  law  which  is  higher  than  the  law  we 
know  with  our  senses,  and  this  does  not  neces- 
sarily mean  death.  What  I  am  getting  at  is  this. 
Can  we  not,  with  agreement  from  all,  state  our 
problem  in  this  way?  That  "matter"  seems  to 
have  reality  to  us  as  long  as  we  remain  in  the 
consciousness  in  which  we  now  are,  but  that  when 
through  spiritual  understanding  we  raise  our 
consciousness  to  the  law  of  God,  we  lose  the  sense 
of  material  things.  You  will  notice  that  I  have 
used  the  words  (in  referring  to  "matter"  in  this 
definition)  "seems  to  have  reality, "  thus  leaving 
the  question  open,  as  a  matter  of  actuality  to  you 
as  to  whether  "matter  has  reality  or  not."  Stated 
in  this  way,  does  there  seem  to  be  a  very  wide 
difference  to  you  between  usual  church  beliefs 


98  Christian  Science 

and  the  beliefs  of  Christian  Science?  Lest  I  am 
misunderstood,  I  wish  here  to  repeat  my  own 
behef  toward  which  I  prefer  to  exercise  my  faith 
that  "matter"  as  such  does  not  exist,  and  that 
the  carnal  mind  influences  producing  the  effects 
of  "matter"  are  in  the  nature  of  a  dream  of 
separation  from  God  the  One  Mind.  Why  then 
should  there  be  anything  of  fear  or  of  sorrow  in 
"death"?  Why  should  we  feel  that  keen  sense  of 
separation  which  brings  suffering  to  so  many,  if 
we  know  and  realize  in  consciousness  that  "eternal 
life"  and  "all  is  Mind"  must  mean  that  our 
friends  who  are  passed  beyond  the  veil  are  just 
as  present  with  us  to-day  as  they  were  yesterday, 
even  though  we  cannot  sense  them?  It  has 
always  seemed  to  me  that  instead  of  surrounding 
death  with  sorrow  and  weeping,  we  should  sur- 
round it  with  the  celestial  music  of  joy  for  the 
soul  that  perchance  is  stepping  over  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  wider  life.  This  need  not  be  abstract 
theory;  it  can  be  real  conviction. 

I  say,  that  there  need  be  no  sorrow  in  death 
— but  there  is  sorrow  in  some  of  the  thoughts 
with  which  men  surround  it.  Not  long  since,  a 
physician — my  very  good  friend  too  and  a  worthy 
man — was  with  me  in  a  home  where  there  was 
sickness,  and  he  spoke  to  me  of  misery,  of  lingering 
illness,  of  suffering,  and  of  sorrow.  There  were 
other  things  of  which  I  will  not  speak.  I  am  a  well 
man,  but  it  was  difficult  for  me  to  throw  aside 
the  pall  and  see  clearly  God's  real  truth,   and  I 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?         99 

thought,  if  it  be  true  that  hfe  is  but  a  succession  of 
psychical  influences  and  unconscious  mental  im- 
pressions, communicable  without  words,  what  must 
such  an  atmosphere  mean  to  one  whose  mind  is 
not  vigorous,  to  one  who  is  ill,  or  to  one  who  is 
making  ready  to  step  over  the  threshold  into  the 
mystery  of  new  experiences?  These  are  the  real 
sorrows  of  sickness  and  of  death,  the  earnest 
loving  efforts  to  heal  and  to  save,  which,  through 
lack  of  understanding  of  the  truth,  create  the 
tragedies  they  wish  to  avoid. 

I  hope  that  this  book  will  fall  into  the  hands  of 
some  physicians — and  that  what  I  have  said  will 
make  them  consider  and  consider  again,  whether 
much  of  their  painstaking  effort  is  not  vitiated 
by  their  mental  attitudes.  The  thought  is  given 
not  in  a  spirit  of  criticism  but  in  one  of  love. 

And  right  here,  let  me  say  another  thing. — I 
have  in  my  library  a  book,  written  by  a  physician, 
and  handed  to  me  by  another  physician,  my  very 
good  friend.  It  attempts  to  prove  that  man  has 
developed  from  the  amoeba  to  his  present  organism 
by  a  process  of  subdivision  and  chemical  action. 
It  states  that  something  very  like  ''life,"  as  we 
know  it,  has  been  produced  by  chemical  agents, 
and  predicts  that  ''life"  will  in  the  future  be 
produced  by  that  means. 

When  the  friend  who  handed  me  the  book  speaks 
of  it  to  me  I  say,  ' '  Yes — it  sounds  very  convinc- 
ing. I  do  not  think  I  can  reasonably  escape  the 
conclusions  presented  up  to  a  certain  point.     In 


100  Christian  Science 

fact,  I  believe  that  the  book  states  truth  when  it 
says  that  man  as  you  know  him  has  developed  in 
the  way  you  say — the  only  thing  I  will  discuss 
with  you  at  all,  up  to  this  point,  is  whether  man 
has  really  developed  something  or  has  only 
developed  a  consciousness  of  something  which 
really  does  not  exist  outside  of  that  consciousness 
{i.  e.j  diffused  mortal  mind) — and  perhaps  we  had 
better  not  discuss  that  for  fear  we  wouldn't  agree. 
So  far  there  is  not  much  to  discuss  between  us, 
is  there  ?  But  when  you  use  the  course  of  develop- 
ment we  both  believe  in  as  a  premise  for  saying 
that  the  kind  of  life  produced  in  the  way 
you  describe  in  this  book  is  the  only  life  there  is, 
or  if  you  please,  the  only  consciousness  of  life 
there  is,  you  precipitate  a  discussion  in  which  I 
know  we  will  not  agree.  You  are  talking  of 
something  produced  or  possibly  dreamed  by  the 
'carnal  mind  which  is  enmity  to  God.'  You  are 
talking  of  the  'Law  of  sin  and  death,'  which  I 
agree  seems  very  real  to  us  and  seems  to  have 
done  just  the  things  you  say  it  has.  But  I  know 
that  there  is  another  'Law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in 
Christ  Jesus, '  which  sets  me  free  from  the  opera- 
tion of  the  law  you  discuss  in  your  book.  I 
know  that  there  is  another  kind  of  life,  or  con- 
sciousness of  life,  which  is  not  subject  to  the 
dreary  progression  outlined  in  your  book,  but  is 
the  fulfilling  of  the  true  law.  You  cannot  prove 
this  with  the  five  material  senses  and,  if  you 
cannot  see  and  know  it,  it  is  because  you  cannot 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?        loi 

speak  my  language  and  we  will  not  progress  far 
in  our  discussion  if  you  speak  one  language  and 
I  another.  I  cannot  talk  your  language  now.  I 
have  unlearned  it  though  I  used  to  know  it.  When 
you  have  learned  my  language  come  to  me  and  we 
will  talk  again — and  then  we  may  agree.  The 
text  book  of  my  language  is  the  Bible." 

Such  arguments  as  are  set  forth  in  the  book  in 
question,  even  though  I  believe  them  to  a  certain 
point,  do  no  more  to  shake  my  faith  in  a  loving 
God  and  in  my  own  eternal  life  than  the  wind 
blowing  in  the  trees.  They  only  awaken  in  me 
the  deepest  sense  of  pity  for  those  who  hold  to 
the  doctrines  in  their  entirety,  for  God  knows  a 
life  lived  under  the  shadow  of  such  a  belief  must  be 
but  little  short  of  tragedy  itself. 

Life  that  is  primarily  centered  in  anything  save 
God  is  not  life,  and  can  be  desolated  in  a  thousand 
ways;  but  life  centered  primarily  in  thoughts 
of  God  and  his  service,  life  to  which  other  things 
and  persons  are  but  secondary  to  the  great  One 
Thought  or  Mind,  is  eternal  and  can  never  be 
desolated,  for  God  is  always  everywhere,  and 
true  consciousness  of  Him  changeth  not.  I 
wonder  if  this  is  not  what  is  meant  by  the  first 
great  commandment  and  by  what  the  Bible  says 
of  the  life  that  is  founded  on  a  Rock. 

Have  you  ever  thought  that  our  sorrowful 
thoughts  of  those  who  are  gone  may  be  known  to 
them  and  impede  their  progress  in  the  new  life? 
Mrs.  Eddy  denies  this  in  her  chapter  on  "Christian 


102  Christian  Science 

Science  Versus  Spiritualism,"  but  if  you  were 
seeing  again,  possibly  without  consciousness  of 
separation,  those  whom  you  had  lost  to  sight  but 
not  to  heart  and  mind ;  if  you  greatly  desired 
to  go  aside  and  exchange  loving  thought  with 
them,  would  you  not  be  torn  by  the  knowledge 
that  those  you  had  just  left  were  in  grief  for  you; 
and  would  you  not  feel  that  you  should  postpone 
your  greatest  desire  to  see  the  loved  ones  from 
whom  you  had  long  been  parted — in  the  hope  of 
comforting  these  you  had  but  just  left?  Is  this 
not  good  reason  again  for  surrounding  death 
with  joy  instead  of  with  mourning? 

Have  you  ever  seen  a  butterfly,  a  thing  of 
beauty  and  joy,  come  forth  from  a  chrysalis  and 
fly  away;  and  have  you  thought  that  perchance 
this  might  be  God's  message  to  us  of  the  nature 
both  of  birth  and  of  death?  Just  before  the 
butterfly  freed  himself  there  came  a  final  struggle 
— if  you  had  been  able  to  see  the  chrysalis  alone, 
it  would  have  seemed  to  be  pain — but  seeing  the 
butterfly  also  you  knew  that  consciousness  was 
centered  in  the  beautiful  to  come  not  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  husk  which  was  left  behind.  What 
you  saw  was  "death,  "  yet  it  was  birth  also.  The 
struggle  was  one  of  joy  and  not  of  suffering. 
You  followed  with  your  eye  the  beautiful  butter- 
fly and  did  not  center  your  thought  on  the  dry 
husk.  That  to  you  was  nothing  because  you 
could  see  the  beauty  to  which  it  gave  birth. 
By  the  use  of  spiritual  perception  you  can  see 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       103 

likewise  in  the  case  of  a  friend   who  goes   be- 
yond. 

Why  mourn  when  you  lay  the  husk  of  a  friend 
in  the  ground — can  you  not  use  your  spiritual  eyes 
and  see  the  beauty  which  is  your  friend  and  which 
still  lives?  All  the  good  you  have  ever  known  of 
that  friend  has  been  spiritual  and  is  still  yours 
if  you  will  take  it.  Your  relationship  with  that 
friend,  if  you  will  make  it  so,  and  he  has  in  "life'* 
made  this  possible,  will  be  better  after  what  you 
call  death,  than  before,  because  it  will  be  unmarred 
by  thoughts  of  anything  save  beauty,  harmony, 
and  good — and  while  you  may  not  believe  this — 
for  it  is  one  of  the  things  which  can  only  be  proven 
by  demonstration  in  the  life  of  each  individual 
for  himself — such  a  relationship  can  be  made 
just  as  much  of  a  reality  to  you  as  anything  you 
now  seem  to  know. 

Did  you  ever  go  back  to  your  boyhood  home? 
Was  it  the  home  you  enjoyed — or  was  it  not  rather 
the  memories  stimulated  in  you  by  the  sight  of 
that  home?  Memories  of  mother  love  and  boy- 
hood j  oys.  I  like  to  think  in  this  way  that  the  places 
where  belief  of  our  friends  "bodies"  are  buried 
are  but  fancied  meeting  places  for  us  with  these 
beliefs  who  have  gone  before,  for  there  being  no 
matter,  no  one  has  died.  Life  is  reality.  The 
chrysalis,  the  husk,  which  is  left  behind  is  only  our 
false  sense  of  man  and  is  nothingness,  dust  to 
dust.  The  monument  which  is  the  door  plate  of 
the  supposed  resting  place  of  an  illusion  does  not 


104  Christian  Science 

prevent  our  loving,  happy  thoughts  from  going 
forth  in  the  new  Hfe  and  refusing  to  be  sepa- 
rated from  the  one  who  is  yet  with  us  in  a  truer, 
more  harmonious  relationship  than  ever  before, 
because  the  dust  illusion  has  disappeared. 

I  see  I  have  wandered  far  from  my  subject — 
but  even  though  the  last  few  paragraphs  do  not 
logically  follow  what  has  gone  before  I  am  going 
to  let  them  stand  among  the  random  thoughts 
between  friends. 

Suppose  now  we  examine  Mrs.  Eddy's  theory  in 
the  light  of  the  accusation  so  commonly  made, 
that  it  destroys  the  meaning  of  life,  and  for  the 
sake  of  clearness,  suppose  we  consider  that 
question  as  related  to  several  kinds  of  occupation 
now  used  by  men  as  a  means  of  livelihood  and 
otherwise. 

First,  take  the  business  man.  Does  Mrs. 
Eddy's  teaching  destroy  the  meaning  or  dignity 
of  what  he  is  doing?  That  depends  to  a  con- 
siderable degree  on  how  he  is  doing  it,  for  he  may 
be  doing  it  in  a  spirit  which  leaves  nothing  of 
dignity  to  be  destroyed.  But  let  us  see.  Our  busi- 
ness man  is  in  the  business,  let  us  say,  of  manu- 
facturing lumber.  Now,  I  believe  and  so  do  you 
and  so  I  presume  does  every  Christian  Scientist, 
that  it  is  extremely  improbable  (even  if  you 
grant  that  matter  is  non-existent)  that  this  lumber- 
man, or  for  that  matter,  any  other  man,  will, 
during  the  time  known  here  as  this  lifetime, 
(one  hundred  years  at  the  outside)  actually  raise. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       105 

his  consciousness  to  the  point  where  he  will  be 
able  to  perceive  that  truth  as  a  sensible  fact,  but 
if  life  be  continuous  and  the  belief  a  true  one,  he 
will  some  day  perceive  it  and  know  that  though 
the  idea  of  boards  may  be  a  true  mental  (psychic) 
spiritual  fact  the  belief  of  matter  is  not.  It  is 
not  probable,  however,  that  he  will  in  this  present 
life  obtain  the  consciousness  that  a  board  or  a 
pile  of  lumber  has  no  so  called  material  reality. 
If  he  did  so,  he  would  be  beyond  the  need  of  having 
or  making  boards,  in  the  way  he  makes  them 
now.  What  then  can  that  man  do  that  will  be  a 
step  in  the  right  direction?  Well  for  one  thing — • 
I  know,  and  so  does  every  good  Christian  Scientist, 
that  in  relation  to  his  own  body,  he  can  demon- 
strate, by  keeping  firmly  in  mind  the  idea  as  yet 
not  seen  (faith  which  is  the  substance  of  things 
unseen)  that  matter  is  unreal  and  God  is  All, 
many  things  that  he  will  only  believe  after  he  has 
demonstrated  them.  Try  it  and  see.  I  know 
also  that  by  keeping  firmly  in  mind  the  fact  that 
he  is  a  part  of  universal  Mind,  and  that  therefore 
he  is  entitled  to  know  the  truth  in  relation  to 
anything  needful  in  his  life,  and  if  it  be  needful 
to  obtain  it — he  can  direct  his  course  of  action  in 
his  business  in  such  a  way  (or  rather  God  will 
give  him  direction  regarding  it)  that  he  will  obtain 
for  that  business  true  success,  which  does  not 
always  mean  the  accumulation  of  as  large  a  sum  of 
money  as  we  sometimes  deceive  ourselves  into 
beheving^  we  need.     Further,  he,  can  regard  his. 


io6  Christian  Science 

business  not  as  a  means  of  making  money,  but 
as  a  means  of  revealing  things  which  are  God's, 
and  Man's  as  heirs  of  God  and  joint  heirs  with 
Christ.  By  which  I  mean  bringing  into  expression 
new,  true  ideas  out  of  universal  Mind.  He  can 
regard  a  dollar  as  measured  in  value  by  the 
amount  of  spiritual  benefit  he  can  get  out  of  it  for 
himself  and  for  others,  and  not  as  a  thing  in  itself 
to  be  desired.  He  can  conduct  his  business  with 
justice  to  his  fellow  man,  rather  than  selfishly 
for  himself,  and  as  a  practical  step  in  that  direction 
he  can  give  consideration  when  he  employs  another 
to  the  question  not  of  how  small  an  amount  he 
can  buy  services  for,  but  of  what  is  a  just  and 
livable  wage.  He  can  regard  the  welfare  of  a 
fellow  man  as  of  vastly  more  moment  than  the 
welfare  of  a  dollar  or  any  number  of  dollars. 
In  other  words,  he  can  conduct  his  business  un- 
selfishly to  God's  glory  instead  of  selfishly  to  his 
own — and  he  can  make  no  mistake — look  around 
you  and  you  will  see  that  it  has  been  done.  The 
spiritual  sense  is  developing  and  this  is  what  I 
understand  by, ' '  Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of  God 
and  His  Righteousness,  and  all  these  things  shall 
be  added  unto  you";  also  remember  "The  things 
which  are  not  seen"  (I  have  used  the  words  in  this 
paragraph  elsewhere)  "are  eternal."  These  are 
some  steps.  Begin  aright  and  the  pathway  will 
lead  to  a  consciousness  eventually  of  the  things 
which  we  hiow  now,  but  do  not  to-day  see,  or 
objectify  save  "through  a  glass  darkly"     (Bible). 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       107 

Again,  take  the  case  of  a  chemist.  Perhaps  you 
will  say,  "There  surely  is  one  who  deals  with  mat- 
ter." But  let  us  see.  What  after  all  does  your 
chemist  or  any  other,  be  he  never  so  wise,  know  of 
causes?  He  says,  * '  Put  two  atoms  of  hydrogen  with 
one  of  oxygen  and  you  have  water."  But  does  he 
know  why  ?  Not  at  all.  He  has  simply  made  an 
observation  of  the  way  in  which  some  unknown 
cause  acts.  I  believe  that  many  of  the  best 
chemists  and  biologists  of  the  times  say  that 
they  can  account  for  the  action  of  sensible  things 
only  on  the  basis  that  each  atom  of  matter  has  an 
atom  of  consciousness  connected  with  it.  Further, 
I  am  told  that  the  best  and  wisest  chemists  of  the 
age  are  of  the  opinion  that,  some  day,  all  of  the 
elements  so  called  will  be  reduced  to  one  element. 
Very  well,  where  then  is  the  point  of  contact 
between  the  chemist  and  Mrs.  Eddy's  doctrine? 
Let  us  suppose  that  in  the  course  of  the  years, 
your  chemist  has  succeeded  in  reducing  all  ele- 
ments to  one  element,  and  he  still  believes  in  the 
reality  of  matter.  How  does  he  state  his  problem 
then  ?     I  imagine  much  as  follows : 

''Here  is  one  element  which  I  call  matter,  and 
I  can  account  for  its  actions  only  on  the  basis 
that  there  is  consciousness  connected  with  it. 
I  will  next  go  to  work  to  find  that  consciousness, 
which  has  wrapped  itself  up  in  a  cloak  of  what 
I  call  matter."  Now,  I  imagine  that  even  here 
the  chemist  would  have  to  exercise  that  faith 
which  brings  into  substance  things  hoped  for.     I 


io8  Christian  Science 

doubt  very  much  whether  Mind  can  ever  be 
apprehended  by  the  physical  senses  conscious  of 
separation  (by  a  sense  of  matter)  from  God. 
None  the  less,  having  reduced  the  laws  of  material 
chemistry — which  Mrs.  Eddy  calls  "the  law  of 
mortal  mind,"  and  the  Bible,  the  "carnal  mind" 
■ — to  one  element,  the  gap  of  faith  is  very  much 
narrowed  and  becomes  possible  of  crossing  by 
very  many  more  people  than  now.  Mrs.  Eddy 
would  assert  (because  her  definition  of  God  makes 
it  necessary)  that  the  only  real  thing  in  that 
atom  is  consciousness  and  that  man's  false  con- 
ception of  truth  has  surrounded  it  with  something 
which  appears  to  be  separated  from  the  One 
Mind  but  is  really  only  a  false  appearance,  and 
possibly  your  chemist  when  he  comes  to  the  end 
of  his  journey  will  reach  the  same  conclusion. 
His  work  to-day  will  be  dignified  and  given  force 
just  in  proportion  as  he  pursues  it  with  the 
idea  that  what  he  and  what  every  other  man  in 
the  world  is  searching  for  in  his  work,  is  God  and 
the  Truth  about  Him.  Let  him  make  that  the 
end  toward  which  he  is  working,  and  while  he 
may  not  reach  the  goal  so  quickly  as  if  he  followed 
the  other  way,  he  is  none  the  less  on  the  same 
journey,  and  will,  in  following  it,  help  many  who 
cannot,  for  various  reasons,  comprehend  and 
live  the  other  doctrine  as  yet. 

Right  here  let  me  make  a  suggestion  that  may 
supplement  Mr.  Huxley's  belief  that  qualities 
are  not  inherent  in  things  and  say  that  it  may  not. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       109 

be  impossible  that  the  consciousness  which  chem- 
ists and  biologists  believe  to-day  is  connected 
with  the  life  of  every  atom  may  be  apprehensible 
to  the  spiritual  senses  as  ideas  or  things  not 
separate  from  the  One  Mind,  and  that  the  resulting 
phenomena  may  be  the  only  thing  really  seen,  the 
rest  being  a  dream  of  mortal  consciousness  from 
which  the  chemist,  the  natural  scientist,  and  the 
biologist  are,  in  their  own  way  and  without 
knowing  the  true  way,  trying  to  arouse  us,  just  as 
truly  as  Mrs.  Eddy  is  in  her  spiritual  teaching, 
— which  demands  demonstration.  Possibly  had 
Mr.  Huxley  known  of  the  present  chemical  doc- 
trine, his  mind  would  not  have  been  forced  to 
agnosticism.  Pure  speculation  you  say?  True — ■ 
but  one  has  to  pin  his  faith  on  something  if  the 
world  is  to  progress.  Is  it  not  so?  And  why  not 
pin  it  on  the  side  toward  God  ?  I  cannot  conceive 
now  of  manifestation  of  this  character  but  I  can 
understand  that  it  can  be. 

Now  I  come  to  the  medical  profession,  and 
right  here  I  am  afraid  that  I  may  say  some 
things  that  will  not  be  heartily  approved  by  my 
friends. 

There  seems  to  be  a  resistance  on  the  part  of 
some  physicians  to  consider  Christian  Science, 
spiritual  therapeutics,  seriously,  or  allow  it  time  to 
become  demonstrable,  and  the  intolerance  of  the 
novitiate  in  Christian  Science  towards  the  un- 
progressive  physician  should  also  be  eliminated. 
They  are  both  striving  to  alleviate  human  woe, 


no  Christian  Science 

one  on  the  material  basis  of  mental  theorizing; 
the  other  on  a  spiritual  posttilate. 

The  understanding  of  Christian  Science  cure 
is  misapprehended  by  most  people,  I  think,  for  I 
find  that  many  speak  of  the  impossibility  of 
reducing  a  swelling  by  metaphysical  means,  for 
instance.  Now,  the  Christian  Scientist,  if  I  un- 
derstand his  position  correctly,  regards  life  as  a 
succession  of  states  of  consciousness.  Manifestly, 
if  you  are  not  conscious  of  a  thing,  for  you  it 
does  not  exist.  So  the  Christian  Scientist  says, 
**We  seem  to  have  two  minds,  the  Christmind, 
truth,  which  is  like  God's  Mind,  unconscious  of 
separation  from  Him  and  a  part  of  His  Mind,  and 
the  mind  which  is  mortal,  and  is  the  physical 
senses,  this  latter  in  reality  being  no  mind,  but  a 
dream."  Now,  what  the  Scientist  practitioner 
is  trying  to  do,  and  in  many  cases  does  do,  is  to 
mentally  raise  the  consciousness  of  his  patient 
away  from  the  concepts  of  mortal  mind,  i.e.,  the 
testimony  of  the  physical  senses  (the  law  of  sin 
and  death)  (Bible),  and  to  awaken  active  con- 
sciousness of  the  mind  which  is  like  God's  Mind 
so  that  it  will  perceive  the  truth,  which  is,  that  the 
conceptions  of  the  senses  do  not  exist,  except  as  a 
false  belief.  As  Mr.  Huxley  has  pointed  out,  there 
is  some  testimony  even  from  these  senses  them- 
selves that  they  may  not  have  reality;  and  it  can 
be  done.  Try  it  and  see,  for  only  by  demonstration 
can  you  apprehend  this  truth. 

In  speaking  of  mortal  mind  and  the  Mind  which 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       in 

is  in  Christ  in  this  book,  I  perhaps  should  say 
that  any  conflicts  in  expression  between  Mrs. 
Eddy's  ideas  and  my  own,  exist  in  expression  only. 
I  understand  it  to  be  Mrs.  Eddy's  idea  that  there 
is  but  one  Mind,  in  which  belief  I  agree.  When  I 
speak  later  of  the  Mind  which  was  in  Christ  as 
being  each  man's  individual  birthright  and  divine 
identity,  I  do  not  think  of  something  contained 
within  finite  bounds,  my  definition  of  that  term 
being  that  portion  of  the  One  Mind  which  pertains 
to  the  existence  of  each  individual  and  which 
perfectly  reflects  the  ideas  of  the  One  Mind.  In 
reality,  there  is  no  separation  from  that  Mind, 
only  a  false  consciousness  of  such  separation. 

Suppose  we  trace  now  the  history  of  a  medical 
cure.  My  friend.  Dr.  Wiseman,  who  is  my  close 
personal  friend,  in  whose  good  wishes  for  me  I 
believe,  and  in  whose  medical  knowledge  I  have 
the  utmost  confidence,  comes  to  me  when  I  am 
suffering  with  some  condition  which  makes  me 
uncomfortable  (sick),  and  says,  **You  have  tuber- 
culosis. I  have  examined  your  sputum  and  in  it  I 
see  (or  think  I  see)  things  which  I  know  are  present 
in  such  a  condition,  therefore  I  say  you  have 
tuberculosis."  Now  I  have  no  doubt  that  the 
doctor  saw  something  or  seemed  to  see  something, 
but  what  he  saw  was  a  manifestation  of  the  untrue 
physical  senses  (an  illusion),  from  the  Christian 
Science  point  of  view.  I  believe  this  is  correct 
Christian  Science  doctrine.  It  was  part  of  mortal 
mind,  not  necessarily  his  or  my  own  mortal  mind, 


112  Christian  Science 

for  I  do  not  suppose  that  even  though  it  be  possible 
that  a  person  could  alone  wish  a  disease  on  himself, 
it  is  likely  that  he  would  do  so,  unless  he  were 
helped  by  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  all  mortal 
minds  to  which  I  have  previously  referred.  In 
other  words,  the  consciousness  of  that  so-called 
germ  is  a  part  of  the  "Law  of  sin  and  death" 
referred  to  in  the  Bible  and  created  by  false  mind 
of  men  alone,  not  by  God.  What  the  Christian 
Scientist  is  trying  to  do  is  to  "set  you  free  from 
the  'Law  of  sin  and  death'"  by  raising  your 
consciousness  to  the  "Law  of  the  spirit  of  Christ 
Jesus,"  the  two  laws  having  nothing  to  do  with 
each  other  in  their  authorship — the  one  being 
human,  the  other  divine.  What  the  doctor 
"saw"  in  other  words,  if  he  saw  anything,  was  a 
thing  which  would  not  be  harmful  to  true  con- 
sciousness.    Remember  "psychical  influences." 

I  have  no  doubt,  I  say,  that  the  doctor  "saw" 
something  out  of  the  law  of  sin  and  death,  or 
mortal  mind  (no  one  attacks  his  sincerity),  and 
if  he  does  nothing  to  help  me,  or  possibly  if  he  does 
do  something  to  help  me,  and  keeps  on  holding 
before  my  mind  images  of  crawly  things  that  seek 
the  inmost  recesses  of  my  being  for  breakfast, 
supper,  or  luncheon  (as  some  medical  men  have  a 
habit  of  doing),  I  have  no  doubt  that  I  shall  do 
what  is  called  "dying."  In  other  words,  I  shall 
leave  behind,  through  suffering,  the  particular 
consciousness  of  matter  I  have,  because  it  has 
become  a  burden  which  I  cannot  bear  under  the 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       113 

conditions,  and  take  up  the  same  general  con- 
sciousness elsewhere  till  I  have  risen  above  it. 

But  the  doctor  does  something.  He  says, 
* 'Jones,  my  friend,  there  is  just  one  hope  for  you. 
The  other  day  I  was  looking  through  a  microscope, 
and  while  a  cure  for  tuberculosis  has  never  been 
yet  discovered,  I  think  I  know,  and  have  seen,  a 
crawly  thing  just  a  little  stronger  than  the 
crawly  things  within  your  being  (which  range  two 
billion  to  the  inch  in  your  lungs  while  the  new 
crawly  things  range  four  billion),  and  the  new 
crawly  things  eat  up  the  old  crawly  things.  So, 
if  you  will  let  me  put  a  few  trillion  of  the  new  ones 
under  your  skin,  I  think  they  will  eat  up  the  old 
crawly  things  and  make  you  comfortable  (well).'* 
Now,  naturally,  after  so  much  talk  of  things  prom- 
enading in  my  sacred  and  scared  interior,  I 
have  great  goose  fleshes,  but  also  having  great 
confidence  in  Dr.  Wiseman,  I  permit  him  to  inject 
a  menagerie  and  create  a  cemetery  within  me, 
and  in  the  course  of  time  I  get  well.  Now  I  ask 
you,  is  it  not  conceivable  that  if  the  function  of 
sight  be  as  uncertain  as  Mr.  Huxley  seems  to 
think  it  may  be,  and  life  be  really  "  psychic  influ- 
ences without  one  particle  of  matter/'  what  Dr. 
Wiseman  saw  was  nothing  but  a  creation  (i,  e., 
consciousness  of,  not  real  creation)  of  mortal 
mind  (a  part  of  the  "law  of  sin  and  death*')  in 
the  case  of  both  kinds  of  crawly  things,  and 
what  really  cured  me  was  my  faith  in  Dr.  Wiseman 
and  in  his  ability  to  see  into  my  interior  and 


114  Christian  Science 

create  a  sense  of  peace  out  of  a  sense  of  war 
between  millions?  I  don't  assert  this  as  a  fact, 
neither  do  I  deprecate  whatever  good  the  doctor 
may  accomplish;  I  merely  wish  to  exercise  my 
''faith  which  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for  " 
in  this  direction  and  I  ask  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
this  is  hypothetically  the  first  case  of  the  kind 
ever  cured,  is  it  not  a  possibility?  Now,  let  us 
follow  the  process. 

Aiy  friend  Smith  has  the  same  kind  of  dis- 
comfort, and  I  tell  him  of  my  cure  and  of  Dr.  Wise- 
man, and  he  tells  Johnson  and  he  tells  Hanson, 
and  Peterson,  and  Seeley,  etc.,  ad  infinitum^  and 
pretty  soon  you  have  the  good  news  over  all  the 
world  and  everybody's  faith  is  stimulated,  and 
cures  innumerable  are  accomplished ;  also  faith  in 
the  ''germ"  causing  the  trouble  is  likewise  stim- 
ulated {i.  e.,  lack  of  faith  in  truth).  You  will  see 
what  I  am  getting  at,  which  is,  may  it  not  be 
possible  that,  in  his  own  way,  the  doctor  just  as 
the  chemist  and  the  business  man  is  in  search  of 
God,  and  may  it  not  be  that  the  doctor  himself 
will  some  day  discover  that  he  has  been  bound 
up  in  the  "law  of  sin  and  death "  to  such  an  extent, 
along  with  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  in  such  a  way, 
that  while  he  honestly  thought  he  was  doing  some- 
thing to  cure  matter  with  matter  (the  existence  of 
such  a  thing  being  a  question  about  which  even 
Mr.  Huxley  speculates) ,  what  he  was  really  doing 
was  something  with  mind  (mortal  mind)  to  cure 
mortal  mind,  i,  e.,  change  a  belief?    And  may  the 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       115 

day  not  come  when  he  will  see  and  admit  that 
after  all  the  long  journey  he  has  traveled ;  in  sober 
truth,  the  only  permanent  cure  is  God  and  con- 
sciousness of  oneness  with  Him?^ 

I  quote  here  from  Dr.  William  Osier,  who,  I  be- 
lieve, has  the  confidence  of  the  medical  profession, 
and  state  in  advance  that  it  seems  to  me  his  asser- 
tion is  a  step  in  the  right  direction. 

This  is  taken  from  the  Ladies  Home  Journal  for 
October,  191 5: 

We  are  certainly  making  long  strides  forward 
when  we  read  such  words  as  these,  and  they  con- 
cern us  all  because  they  concern  our  health,  and 
it  must  be  well  borne  in  mind  that  the  writer,  Sir 
William  Osier,  M.D.,  is  unquestionably  the  foremost 
living  American  physician  and  the  highest  authority 
on  drugs,  in  the  medical  world.  He  says  what  fol- 
lows in  the  EncyclopcBdia  Americana: — "The  new 
school  does  not  feel  itself  under  obligation  to  give  any 
medicine  whatever,  while  a  generation  ago,  not  only 
could  few  physicians  have  held  their  practice  unless 
they  did,  but  few  would  have  thought  it  safe  or 
Scientific."  "Of  course,  there  are  still  many  cases 
where  the  patient  or  the  patient's  friends  must  he 
humored  by  administering  medicine  or  alleged  medi- 
cine where  it  is  not  really  needed  and  indeed  often 
where  buoyancy  of  mind,  which  is  the  real  curative 
agent,  can  be  created  only  by  making  him  wait  hope- 
fully for  the  expected  action  of  medicine;    and  some 

'  Faith  in  cure  is  a  faith  in  a  degree  toward  right. 


Ii6  Christian  Science 

physicians  still  cannot  unlearn  their  old  training.** 
"But  the  change  is  great.  The  modern  treatment  of 
disease  relies  very  greatly  on  the  so-called  natural 
methods,  diet  and  exercise,  bathing  and  massage; 
in  other  words,  giving  the  natural  forces  the  fullest 
scope  by  easy  and  thorough  nutrition,  increased  flow 
of  blood,  and  removal  of  obstructions  to  the  excretory 
systems  or  to  circulation  in  the  tissues."  "One 
notable  example  is  typhoid  fever.  At  the  outset  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  it  was  treated  with  remedies 
of  the  extremest  violence ;  bleeding  and  blistering,  vom- 
iting and  purging,  antimony  and  calomel,  and  other 
heroic  remedies.  Now,  the  patient  is  bathed  and  nursed 
and  carefully  tended  but  rarely  given  medicine." 

"This  is  the  result,"  continues  Dr.  Osier,  "of  the 
remarkable  experiments  of  the  Paris  and  Vienna 
schools  into  the  action  of  drugs  which  have  shaken  the 
stoutest  faiths;  and  partly  of  the  constant  and  re- 
proachful object  lesson  of  homeopathy.  No  regular 
physician  would  ever  admit  that  the  homeopathic 
'infinitesimals'  could  do  any  good  as  direct  curative 
agents,  and  yet  it  was  perfectly  certain  that  homeo- 
paths lost  no  more  of  their  patients  than  others. 
There  was  hut  one  conclusion  to  draw:  that  most 

DRUGS  HAD  NO  EFFECT  WHATEVER  ON  THE  DISEASES 
FOR  WHICH  THEY  WERE  ADMINISTERED." 

Now,  I  am  quite  certain  that  my  Christian 
Science  friends  will  not  heartily  approve  of  what 
is  said  in  the  above  quotation  with  reference  to 
massage,  diet,  etc.,  their  view  being  that  after  all 
such  things  only  help  temporarily  to  relieve 
belief  in  falsity  and  that  it  is  only  mortal  mind, 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       117 

e.  e.,  (itself  refraining  from  belief  in  the  false,  a 
negative  not  a  positive  action)  which  causes  the 
resulting  "cure."  I  may  say  that  this  is  also 
my  own  understanding.  What  other  conclusion 
can  I  reach  when  I  am  told  by  the  doctors 
themselves  that  emotions  such  as  anger,  pleas- 
ure, contentment,  irritation,  cause  the  precip- 
itation of  certain  substances  in  the  blood 
which  aid  or  retard  health?  Is  not  this  an  admis- 
sion that  the  effect  is  caused  by  mind,  and  when 
these  emotions  are  permanently  controlled  so 
that  only  the  good  is  manifested,  in  consciousness, 
is  it  not  the  action  of  the  ''mind  that  was  in 
Christ "  {i.e.,  Divine  Power,  controlling  the  mortal 
mind)  which  brings  about  the  cure  or  preserves 
health,  a  positive  action?  Frankly,  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  m.edical  profession  (at  least  those 
members  of  it  agreeing  with  Dr.  Osier)  have 
not  very  far  to  go  before  they  will  recognize  that 
the  so-called  "precipitations  of  substances  in  the 
blood"  are  merely  another  illusion,  or  false  expla- 
nation of  mortal  mind,  which  always  must  have 
a  material  explanation,  such  as  a  "germ*'  for 
instance,  and  that  after  all,  when  viewed  cor- 
rectly, the  real  struggle  is  that  of  mind  alone 
toward  the  knowledge  of  truth  (true  spiritual 
influence)  and  away  from  that  which  has  been 
believed  to  be  true,  but  is  in  reality  a  falsity  {i.  e., 
false  psychical   influence^   not    of   God   and   not 

^  When  I  use  the  term   "false  psychical  influence"  please 
understand  instead  of  "influence"  inertia. 


iiS  Christian  Science 

"matter*'  proceeding  from  man  and  the  "law  of 
sin  and  death").  In  other  words,  is  it  not  true 
that  just  as  the  business  man  and  the  chemist 
are  going  to  eventually  reach  the  conclusion  that 
God  is  the  end  of  the  journey,  so  the  medical  man, 
in  his  own  way  (even  though  it  be  not  the  quickest 
and  best  way  or  right  way),  will  finally  come  to 
the  same  conclusion,  i.  e.,  that  God  is  the  only  cure, 
the  end  of  the  journey,  to  which  all  spiritual 
thoughts  are  inevitably  leading  all  mankind? 

Have  you  ever  noticed  how  necessary  it  seems 
to  the  human  mind  to  supply  a  material  explana- 
tion of  every  phenomenon?  I  have  a  very  good 
example.  Right  now  as  I  am  writing,  we  are 
having  in  the  town  in  which  I  live  an  epidemic  of 
"grip";  within  the  past  week  some  of  the  schools 
have  been  closed,  and  business  houses  have  been 
seriously  handicapped  by  the  absence  of  their 
employees.  The  pest  has  become  so  widespread 
that  I  am  told  that  one  store  has  thirty  of  its 
employees  absent.  We  haven't  had  any  rain  or 
snow  (it  is  winter)  here  for  a  considerable  time, 
and  the  streets  are  very  dusty.  Everybody  is 
loudly  proclaiming  that  the  difficulty  is  due  to 
the  dust — and  apparently  without  careful  exami- 
nation of  the  subject,  everybody,  including  the 
doctor,  has  accepted  that  as  the  correct  answer. 
The  theory  seems  to  be  that  there  is  some  kind  of  a 
germ  that  uses  the  little  dust  particles  as  saddle- 
horses,  and  when  the  rain  comes,  the  horses 
have  to  stay  in  for  fear  they  might  catch  cold. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       119 

You  see,  the  human  mind  demands  that  it  have 
something  which  is  capable  of  being  seen,  smelled, 
touched,  heard,  or  tasted,  as  an  explanation — 
even  if  that  thing  be  so  small  that  it  cannot  be 
seen  with  the  keenest  microscope ;  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  in  order  to  understand  causation  that 
the  proximate  cause  at  least  be  material — so 
reasons  the  human  mind. 

Well,  perhaps  the  dust  explanation  is  satis- 
factory to  some,  but  it  is  far  from  convincing 
to  me,  and  I  surmise  that  it  would  be  likewise 
to  anyone  who  really  stopped  to  think  about 
the  matter.  There  are  certain  difficulties  in  the 
way — for  instance,  I  distinctly  remember  that  the 
last  time  we  had  the  same  plague  in  the  house, 
the  country  looked  like  a  swamp — the  germs  were 
using  boats  then.  Then,  too,  why  is  it,  if  the  dust 
is  responsible,  that  the  trouble  attacks  office 
workers  and  fails  to  completely  annihilate  the 
street  cleaning  department,  which  seems  to  be 
doing  business  as  usual — and  why  is  it  that  at 
one  time  the  same  kind  of  difficulty  is  attributed 
to  cold,  damp  weather  and  the  next  time  to  warm, 
dry  weather  ?  Further ,  bringing  the  matter  a  little 
nearer  home,  which  I  hope  will  be  pardoned  since 
the  necessities  of  a  ready-made  example  demand 
— why  is  it  that  some  others  living  in  the  same 
house  have  the  difficulty  while  I  have  not?  This 
seems  strange,  because  I  have  been  out  where  the 
dust  is  and  have  even  spent  every  night  on  a 
sleeping  porch  reasonably  near  the  street  where  the 


120  Christian  Science 

little  germ  riders  with  their  little  dust  horses 
have  a  standing  invitation  to  visit  me,  while  the 
others  to  whom  I  refer  have  been  shut  up  in  the 
house.  Further,  if  the  difficulty  is  due  to  germs  I 
have  given  them  every  chance  in  the  world — I 
laid  on  the  bed  the  other  evening  with  one  of  my 
children  and  he  coughed  in  my  face  almost  con- 
tinuously for  an  hour.  The  physical  explanation 
of  that  is  of  course  that  I  am  in  a  robust  state  of 
health — but  somehow  that  doesn't  satisfy  me 
because  when  the  epidemic  started  in  the  family, 
I  was  feeling  particularly  run  down  because  of 
five  weeks  of  continuous  stomach  disturbance 
which  through  my  own  weakness  I  had  failed  to 
be  rid  of — and  I  have  continuously  improved 
since — and  then  if  I  am  in  robust  health,  I  wonder 
why. 

Of  course,  to  my  own  mind,  the  explanation  of 
my  immunity  is  easy.  Every  morning  before  get- 
ting up  and  every  evening  before  going  to  bed, 
and  several  times  during  the  day,  when  I  have  felt 
a  tendency  to  succumb  to  the  prevailing  mental 
impression  (for  I  have  felt  those  mental  impres- 
sions beginning  very  strongly  several  times)  I 
have  mentally  contradicted  and  destroyed  the 
false  impression  and  substituted  therefor,  in  my 
mind,  the  truth  about  God.  It  is  His  power  that 
will  always  save  if  we  appeal  rightly.  Don't 
mistake  it  for  the  action  of  your  own  mind,  which 
can  never  permanently  cure  you.  If  you  or  I 
attribute    power    to   ourselves,    we   lose   power. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       121 

I  have  been  mentally  charged  against  the  pre- 
vailing attitude  of  mind  instead  of  for  it.  It  is 
entirely  possible  that  I  may  get  in  trouble  with  it 
yet  (this  paragraph  is  written  with  a  due  humility 
of  thankfulness  and  not  as  a  boast) — but  if  I  do, 
I  will  know  that  it  is  because  of  my  own  weakness 
in  giving  up  to  a  human  mental  concept  instead 
of  clinging  persistently  and  faithfully  to  the  Divine 
truth  in  which  there  is  no  falsity,  and  I  certainly 
will  not  ascribe  to  God  any  part  either  of  my  failure 
or  my  discomfort ;  or  ascribe  it  to  "matter  "  instead 
of  to  false  mind. 

If  you  ask  me,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  epi- 
demic will  stop  when  the  snov/  comes — but  the  rea- 
son I  give  for  it  is  obviously  not  the  one  commonly 
accepted;  and  frankly  now,  does  it  not  seem  to 
you,  when  you  really  get  down  and  think  of  it 
carefully,  that  mental  causation  of  such  an 
epidemic  as  we  are  having  is  very  much  more  sat- 
isfactory as  an  explanation  than  the  prevailing 
dusto-germy  conception?  Look  at  it  even  from 
the  standpoint  of  human  separated  mentality — 
we  know  that  telepathy  is  a  fact — we  know  that 
there  are  many  activities  of  mind  of  which  we  are 
not  actively  conscious;  what  then  is  the  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  saying  that  when  a  lot  of  minds  get 
thinking  (''not  thoughts,"  i.e.,  get  into  a  false 
state  of  consciousness)  along  a  certain  line  they 
affect  a  lot  of  other  minds  in  the  same  way  as 
they  themselves  are  affected?  When  you  think 
of  mortal  carnal  mind  as  diffused  this  can  be 


122  Christian  Science 

seen  even  more  clearly.  And  honestly  doesn't 
this  kind  of  explanation  explain  away  a  whole 
lot  of  difficulties  that  are  insurmountable  in  the 
dust  and  germ  hypothesis?  The  man  whose 
mind  is  either  unconsciously  or  otherwise — by 
his  lack  of  thought  or  by  his  surroundings, 
which  are  really  also  thoughts — predisposed  to- 
ward the  prevailing  mental  attitude  gets  its 
results;  the  man  who  is  charged  against  it,  by 
Divine  power,  either  unconsciously  or  otherwise, 
either  by  his  thoughts  or  his  surroundings,  does 
not.  And  what  after  all  is  so  hard  to  believe  in 
mental  causation?  Even  if  you  grant  that 
your  body  is  a  reality  and  mind  separated  from 
God,  the  One  Mind — is  there  any  act,  any  gesture, 
any  expression  of  face,  which  is  not  the  result 
(from  the  time  you  are  born  as  you  call  it,  to  the 
time  you  die  as  you  call  it) ,  of  mental  causa'.ion? — • 
if  there  is,  name  it.  Does  not  mind — granting 
that  your  body  is  a  reality — move  your  hand? 
And  can  you  see  your  mind?  Why  then  always 
seek  for  an  explanation  to  ever3^thing  else  which  you 
can  see  and  refuse  to  believe  any  other?  And  if 
after  a  while  you  reach  the  point  where  you  can  see 
and  believe  that  all  causation  is  mental  as  many 
are  now  believing,  is  not  the  next  logical  step 
this — if  all  causation  is  mental  to  remove  the  cause 
you  must  remove  something  mental,  not  do  some- 
thing to  "matter"  with  "matter"?  Think  it 
over.  It  must  be  evident  to  you  that  mind  can 
affect  mind,  therefore  if  there  be  no  "matter"  in 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       123 

the  sense  we  have  believed,  surely  you  can  see 
that  the  cure  of  disease  mentally  is  possible, 
especially  if  the  mental  power  evoked  is  divine. 
It  is  granted  that  such  possibility  is  far  more 
difficult  to  comprehend  on  the  hypothesis  of 
mind  affecting  "matter." 

Now  I  am  certain  that  some  of  my  readers  are 
going  to  say — If  all  this  be  true,  why  is  it  that  some 
others  living  under  like  conditions  have  the  diffi- 
culty? Why  has  not  Christian  Science  thought 
been  able  to  save  them  from  the  prevailing  mis- 
conception? Frankly,  it  has  been  tried — and  just 
as  frankly  it  has  failed  to  cure  at  once,  though  it 
has  greatly  helped.  But  do  not  think  that  I  am 
going  to  take  the  further  step  and  say  that  its 
failure  is  in  any  sense  due  to  a  weakness  in  the 
Principle,  for  I  am  not. 

What  I  am  going  to  say  next,  I  am  sure,  will  be 
difficult  to  say,  because  I  am  going  to  seem  to 
ascribe  power  to  that  which  I  have  said,  and  still 
say,  has  no  power.  And  I  say  this  both  on  the 
authority  of  my  spiritual  senses  and  on  the  author- 
ity of  the  Bible.     (Read  the  quotations  and  see.) 

As  a  child,  did  you  ever  wake  up  in  the  night  in  a 
totally  dark  room — and  do  you  remember  how 
the  more  you  thought  about  the  darkness,  the 
darker  and  the  more  terrifying  it  became? — and 
yet  when  you  grew  older,  you  learned  that  dark- 
ness was  really  nothing — just  an  absence  of  light. 

So  I  wonder  if  you  can  see  a  parallel — remember- 
ing always  that  you  are  and  always  have  been 


124  Christian  Science 

but  a  part  of  Mind,  even  though  your  present 
memory  is  limited — in  the  purely  negative  drag 
and  inertia  of  many  minds  (diffused  mortal  mind), 
all  refraining  from  thinking  true  thoughts  at  the 
same  time  and  through  all  time — and  in  the 
response  to  that  inertia  of  the  individual  mind 
falsely  conscious  of  separation  from  God  when  it 
in  turn  dwells  in  the  darkness  of  false  thought 
about  itself  and  gives  heed  to  the  negativeness  of 
false  thought  external  to  itself.  The  nearest  I 
can  come  to  conveying  my  thought  is  to  ask  you 
again  to  think  of  darkness  which  is  in  reality  only 
a  false  conception,  of  absence  of  that  light  which  is 
always  and  everywhere  present,  "/w  Him  is  no 
darkness  at  all."  *'In  Him  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being."  Just  stick  to  your  text  and 
refuse  to  let  your  senses  fool  you.  ' '  At  the  rebuke 
oi  five  shall  they  flee"  (Ezekiel).  I  shall  have 
more  to  say  of  this  in  the  next  chapter. 

Well,  to  return  to  the  failures  of  Christian 
Science,  which  are  really  failures  of  the  individual, 
or  the  race,  to  whom,  or  to  which,  it  is  applied. 
I  think  some  Christian  Science  practitioners 
convey  a  meaning  of  their  work  that  they  do  not 
intend.  They  give  the  impression  to  some  people 
that  Science  treatments  are  absolutely  independent 
of  the  attitude  of  mind  of  the  patient.  I  cannot 
find  any  such  statement  either  in  the  Bible  or  in 
Mrs.  Eddy's  book.  Jesus  nearly  always  said 
when  he  cured,  "Thy  faith  hath  made  thee 
whole,"  and  if  I  have  read  Mrs.  Eddy  correctly, 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       125 

she  certainly  says  that  life  is  a  series  of  states  of 
consciousness  in  the  individual  and  that  only 
through  progress  toward  truth  can  we  overcome 
untruth,  i.  e.,  negative  thought.  This  progress 
impHes  gradual  understanding.  ''Ye  shall  know 
the  truth  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free, "  but 
you  must  ''knock  "  {i.  e.,  apply  yourself  to  a  study 
of  the  truth)  before  it  shall  be  opened. 

Think  of  what  I  have  just  said  and  think  of  it 
in  the  light  of  the  possibility  that  all  is  Mind — • 
the  mental  inertia  of  opinions  coming  from  false 
thought — the  confusion  of  mind  in  the  individual, 
who  seems  falsely  to  be  separated  from  the 
One  Mind — the  unavailing  attempt  to  compromise 
between  the  false  and  the  true — to  depend  half  on 
medicine  and  half  on  faith — to  mix  that  which  has 
less  affinity  than  oil  and  water — the  vast  accumu- 
lation of  inert  negative  thought  which  comes  as  a 
heritage  of  education  and  "psychic  inertia'* 
right  down  through  the  ages,  and  from  which  we 
are  none  of  us  free  as  yet — now  honestly,  is  it 
any  wonder  to  you  that  Christian  Science  some- 
times fails  to  reach  and  raise  the  consciousness  of  a 
patient  in  the  midst  of  such  a  Babel? — when  the 
patient  and  often  the  practitioner  does  not  under- 
stand— for  real  faith  implies,  to  me  at  least,  a 
measure  of  understanding, — to  me  the  wonder  is 
that  it  so  often  does  reach  and  heal — to  me  that 
alone  is  evidence  of  the  fact  that  it  has  its  origin 
in  the  Divine — and  that  all  that  is  needed  is  that 
the  patient  should  emancipate  himself  from  his 


126  Christian  Science 

own  confusion  of  "not  thought, "  and  the  confusion 
of  "not  thought"  around  him,  which  is  in  reaHty 
simply  absence  of  thought,  a  negative  thought,' 
and  fill  the  place  in  his  consciousness,  emptied 
by  destruction  of  the  seeming  falsity,  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  true — "This  is  eternal  life  that 
they  should  know  Thee  (God)."  "Ye  shall 
know  the  truth  and  the  truth  shall  make  you 
free."  Think  of  darkness,  then  think  of  "not 
thought,"  and  see  if  you  can  catch  my  idea  that 
much  we  refer  to  as  thought  is  "not  thought" 
but  merely  mechanical  response  to  false  mental 
impulses.  Perhaps  right  here  is  as  near  as  I  can 
come  to  a  logical  reconcilement  of  a  mind  that  can 
perceive  evil  and  its  existence,  with  a  Good  God 
who  is  All,  for  that  which  produces  only  "not 
thought"  is  "not  Mind."  None  the  less  some- 
thing seems  to  perceive  "not  thoughts"  and  I  am 
still  where  I  was  and  must  affirm,  in  the  face  of 
my  human  mind,  God's  Altogether  Goodness,  i.  e.y 
exercise  faith  toward  Spirit. 

Suppose  we  follow  our  speculation  regarding 
the  course  of  an  epidemic  a  little  further,  and 
suppose  it  be  true  that  the  cause  is  mental.  Then 
suppose  that  everyone  who  has  it  in  the  house 
begins  to  think — "Well,  this  will  last  so  many  days 
and  will  take  such  and  such  a  course   before   it 

*  I  ask  the  reader  to  substitute  as  an  alternate  phrase  "absence 
of  thought"  for  "false  thought"  in  reading  this  book  and  see  if  it 
throws  any  new  light  on  the  Christian  Science  idea  of  the  nature 
of  "mortal  mind"  and  the  law  of  sin  and  death. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       127 

can  be  cured."  Do  you  not  see  that  here  mental 
so-called  law  is  set  up  which  is  just  as  stringent  as 
the  original  inertia  away  from  health,  and  that 
the  more  people  or  doctors  think  and  talk  along  the 
line  that  the  disease  will  take  a  certain  course,  the 
more  certain  they  are  making  it  that  such  will 
appear  to  be  the  case  in  fact?  If  the  cause  of 
disease  be  mental,  this  certainly  can  be  the  case, 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  there  are  very  good  reasons 
for  thinking  that  the  cause  is  mental.  Suppose, 
further,  that  after  such  a  state  of  affairs  is  once 
set  up,  and  emphasized  by  the  unconscious  opinions 
of  many,  it  is  attempted  to  reach  it  by  means  of 
Christian  Science  treatments — can  you  not  see 
what  a  handicap  has  to  be  overcome?  And  is  it 
not  a  testimony  to  the  greatness  of  Divine  Power 
that  when  a  patient  does  succeed  in  freeing  himself 
from  the  maelstrom  of  false  thought,  a  cure  is 
effected  in  the  face  of  accumulated  false  testimony 
of  this  nature? 

Since  writing  the  above,  I  have  purposely  ex- 
posed myself  in  every  possible  way,  except  mental 
belief,  to  the  epidemic  above  mentioned — I  have 
slept  with  those  who  had  it,  and  so  far  as  I  could 
have  disregarded  all  the  commonly  accepted 
notions  as  to  what  should  be  done  under  such 
circumstances — always  however  keeping  my  men- 
tal attitude  opposed  and  filled  with  what  seems 
to  me  the  right  thought  about  God  and  life. 
I  have  not  had  the  trouble  in  any  degree  whatever. 

The  snow  has  come,  and  the  epidemic  is  not 


128  Christian  Science 

stopped.  Now  I  understand  that  the  doctors 
have  taken  "cultures"  from  over  a  thousand 
throats  in  an  effort  to  find  some  "explanation" 
of  the  difficulty.  No  explanation  has  as  yet  been 
found — and  my  prophecy  is  that  when  found  its 
name  will  be  "legion."  Possibly  not  so  many 
as  the  "cultures"  but  none  the  less  sufficient  in 
number  to  raise  the  question  as  to  whether  there 
is  after  all  any  real  principle  back  of  such  experi- 
mentation— such  as  is  back  of  mental  causation; 
which  can  be  seen  to  have  a  universally  applicable 
principle  back  of  all  its  manifestation,  even  though 
the  manifestations  themselves  be  false,  and  the 
application  of  the  principle  erratic  and  ungoverned. 
I  I  am  amused  this  morning  to  see  in  the  paper 
a  new  explanation  of  "colds."  Some  doctor  in 
New  York  says  they  are  due  to  the  unintelligent 
use  of  the  handkerchief!  And  some  newspaper 
gave  the  theory  enough  credence  to  print  it! 
It  bears  as  printed  no  evidence  of  being  an  in- 
tentional joke.  The  good  doctor  gives  minute 
instructions  as  to  just  the  proper  method,  and 
recommends  "handkerchief  drills  for  schools" 
so  that  the  children  may  know  how  to  properly 
blow  their  noses !  Verily,  this  is  a  strange,  strange 
world — and  the  imaginations  of  the  mind  are 
fearfully  and  wonderfully  made.  I  have  a  picture 
in  mind  of  the  village  common  of  a  Saturday 
evening,  converted  to  the  uses  of  "nose  drill," 
with  regiments  of  earnest  citizens  all  industriously 
tooting  their  horns  in  unison  at  the  signal  from 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       129 

the  Major  of  the  Beaks.  The  Lord  grant  that 
they  may  learn  to  toot  in  the  same  key — and  thus 
put  to  shame  the  music  of  the  medical  profession. 
In  saying  which  I  do  not  in  the  least  reverse  my 
opinion  elsewhere  stated  that  that  profession  has 
its  good  uses — and  is  a  calling  which  when  rightly 
used  is  an  instrument  leading  to  the  one  Goal 
which  we  are  all  seeking.  I  have  no  indictment, 
as  will  later  appear,  against  the  underlying  spirit 
of  any  sincere  effort  to  relieve  human  suffering. 

Yesterday,  there  dropped  into  my  ofEce  a  man 
who  had  suffered  with  the  rheumatism  severely. 
I  told  him  of  a  friend  of  mine  who  is  now  suffer- 
ing in  the  same  way,  and  he  spent  half  an  hour 
in  telling  me  how  he  had  cured  himself  by  the  use 
of  kerosene  oil.  This  may  be  an  old  thought  to 
you,  but  it  was  a  new  one  to  me,  and  added 
another  to  the  vast  multitude  of  rheumatism 
*' cures"  with  which  I  was  already  familiar. 
I  have  no  doubt  whatever  of  the  truth  of  the 
story — but  I  doubt  whether  the  cure  was  made  by 
the  kerosene.  May  it  not  be  that  had  he  applied 
ordinary  water  with  the  same  faith  with  which 
he  applied  the  kerosene,  the  result  would  have 
been  the  same?  Remember  life  and  psychical 
influences. 

The  other  day  I  read  in  a  paper  somewhere 
that  there  is  a  nerve  in  the  toe  by  means  of  which 
pain  in  one  of  the  teeth  can  be  controlled.  You 
will  think  that  someone  is  purposely  making 
humor  and  so  did  I  till  I  asked  my  dentist.     He 


130  Christian  Science 

thought  that  the  nerve  in  question  was  not  in  the 
toe,  but  in  one  of  the  fingers — said  it  had  been 
demonstrated  that  by  pressing  on  such  a  nerve, 
pain  in  a  particular  tooth  could  be  controlled. 
This  is  serious  dental  information,  and  I  am  con- 
vinced that  it  is  honestly  believed.  Possibly  it 
is  true  from  a  carnal  law  point  of  view;  possibly 
also  the  "etheric  body"  of  the  Occultist — still 
carnal  law — has  something  to  do  with  it,  but 
honestly  now,  don't  you  think  when  you  come  to 
think  of  it  carefully  that  all  these  things  are  more 
reasonably  explained  by  some  sort  of  mental 
causation  the  exact  operation  of  which  is  not  yet 
understood  and  that  possibly  the  conscious  mind 
separated  in  false  consciousness  from  God  (I 
mean  the  mind  conscious  of  so-called  physical 
surroundings)  in  striving  to  give  a  physical  ex- 
planation to  things  it  does  not  understand  has 
*' experimented"  and  thereby  established  these 
''laws"  for  itself  by  unconscious  mental  enforce- 
ment? Mrs.  Eddy  says  that  ''material  life  is  made 
up  of  the  conscious  and  unconscious  thoughts  of 
mortals."  Think  this  over  in  view  of  what  has 
been  said  concerning  life  being  mind  alone. 

I  must  confess  for  myself  that  with  all  due 
friendly  deference  to  my  good  friend,  the  dentist, 
it  is  vastly  harder  for  me  to  believe  that  pinching 
the  toe  will  stop  the  pain  in  a  tooth,  than  it  is  for 
me  to  believe  that  the  whole  thing,  both  pain  and 
cure,  is  mental — possibly  of  a  mentality  (psychical 
influences)   which  I  cannot  understand   (uncon- 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       131 

scious),  a  mentality  which  is  not  yet  under  control — 
but  none  the  less  mental.  Such  an  explanation 
establishes  a  principle,  the  other  explanations  do 
not.  They  merely  state  an  observation  which 
sometimes  may  be  true  but  more  often  is  not. 
That  I  am  not  the  only  one  who  feels  as  expressed 
herein  regarding  our  "grip"  epidemic  is  evidenced 
by  the  somewhat  cautiously  worded  newspaper 
article  hereafter  quoted.  This  is  from  the  Minne- 
apolis Journal.  Is  there  not  a  hint  in  the  last  few 
Hnes  of  mental  causes? 

Boiling  Down  Medical  Advice 

During  the  present  epidemic  of  that  mysterious 
ailment  known  as  '*la  grippe"  newspaper  columns  all 
over  the  country  have  been  filled  with  medical  warn- 
ings and  recommendations ;  warnings  of  what  to  do  and 
what  not  to  do  to  avoid  illness  and  recommendations 
of  all  sorts  of  cures,  from  alcoholic  indulgence  to  total 
abstinence. 

One  specialist  condemns  the  present  styles  of 
woman's  dress  for  this  evil,  though  the  fact  that 
masculine  as  well  as  feminine  flesh  is  heir  to  it  seems 
to  lessen  the  force  of  his  contention.  He  says  that  to 
wear  germ  bearing  furs  high  around  the  neck  and  to 
protect  the  ankles,  exposed  by  the  prevailing  short 
skirts,  only  with  thin  silk  stockings,  is  not  only  to 
invite  the  grip  germ  to  visit  you,  but  to  give  him  just 
the  sort  of  quarters  he  likes  in  which  to  multiply  and 
accomplish  his  deadly  work. 

Another  expert  advises  us  to  refrain  from  alcoholic 
stimulants,  as  whisky  does  all  sorts  of  horrible  things 


132  Christian  Science 

to  every  organ  in  the  body.  Still  another  advises  a 
nip  of  whisky  night  and  morning  to  stimulate  the 
eliminative  processes. 

Kissing  should  not  be  indulged  in,  save  as  a  con- 
solatory measure  and  very  sparingly  even  for  that 
purpose. 

We  are  told  to  stay  out-of-doors,  to  keep  inside  by 
the  fire;  to  eat  four  or  five  meals  a  day,  to  eat  very 
sparingly  and  only  at  certain  hours;  to  walk  a  good 
deal,  to  avoid  violent  exercise,  and  to  do  and  not  to 
do  so  many  other  contradictory  things  that  faith  in 
all  medical  advice  is  shaken.  The  result  is  a  convic- 
tion that  so  long  as  the  germ  is  going  to  get  us  anyway, 
sooner  or  later,  we  might  just  as  well  have  all  the  fun 
we  can,  by  doing  exactly  as  we  please  before  the  fatal 
moment  arrives. 

Boiled  down  to  its  basic  residuum  the  essence  of  all 
medical  advice  is  to  live  as  normally  as  one  can  and 
exercise  common  sense.  No  specific  rules  for  healthful 
living  can  be  laid  down  for  general  use.  Everyone 
knows,  other  things  being  equal,  that  warm  clothing, 
nourishing  food,  fresh  air,  clean  habits  of  body,  and 
plenty  of  sleep  are  the  best  weapons  in  the  world  with 
which  to  combat  disease.  And  a  few  others  may  well 
be  added  to  these;  which  are  to  refrain  from  reading 
much  miscellaneous  advice  on  the  subject,  occupy 
the  mind  with  other  interests,  don't  be  too  certain  that 
you  are  going  to  be  ill,  don't  worry  if  you  are,  and, 
above  all,  learn  to  cast  out  fear. 

This  is  good  Christian  Science  save  for  the  fact 
that  it  ascribes  power  of  cure  to  human  instead  of 
to  Divine  Mind.     Nobody  denies  that  powders, 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       133 

plasters,  and  medicines  have  an  effect  in  curing  the 
illnesses  which  the  accumulated  false  testimony 
of  human  mind  (false  mental  influences)  has 
itself  alone  created.  Even  Mrs.  Eddy  admits 
this  to  be  true — but  she  takes  what  seems  to  me 
the  true  attitude;  that  such  cure  comes  through 
giving  the  mortal  so-called  mind,  which  itself 
has  created  the  disease,  the  thing  which  it  thinks 
is  going  to  cure  it  ("not  thought")  (mental  cure). 
If  you  will  stop  to  think  a  moment,  you  will 
plainly  see  what  an  endless  maze  of  contradiction 
and  discomfort  you  are  letting  yourself  in  for  if 
you  follow  the  leading  of  this  human  lack  of  intelli- 
gence which  we  sometimes  call  *'mind" — for  if  the 
human  mind  creates  a  consciousness  of  disease, 
there  is  an  endless  number  of  such  that  it  can 
create,  and  has  created,  and  for  every  one  there 
will  be,  and  for  each  one  there  will  be  also  an  endless 
series  of  things  which  human  mind  will  have  faith 
in  as  a  cure.  There  is  no  principle  whatever 
back  of  such  cure,  or  back  of  such  disease  for  that 
matter — just  an  endless  experimental  groping  in 
the  dark  for  something  which  isn't  there. 

Cannot  you  see  that  when  the  Bible  speaks  of 
the  ''carnal  law"  which  is  ''enmity  to  God, "  it  is 
talking  about  just  this  conglomorate  confusion  of 
human  belief  (absence  of  thought,  lack  of  intel- 
ligence), this  unending  labyrinth  of  wandering, 
purposeless  pathways,  which  lead  nowhere  in  the 
end  but  right  hack  into  themselves  again,  so  that 
each  time  one  is  but    traveling    out  of  present 


134  Christian  Science 

misery,  just  to  emerge  into  the  same  thing  again  ? 
And  cannot  you  see  further  that  when  the  Bible 
speaks  of  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Jesus  Christ 
setting  you  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death,  it 
is  speaking  of  something  real  to  your  life  right 
here  to-day  ?  A  law  which  raises  your  conscious- 
ness above  the  endless  contradictions  of  human 
absence  of  thought  to  the  Divine  Principle  which 
never  contradicts  itself,  is  always  true,  and  always 
loving  and  always  altogether  Good.  Cannot 
you  see  that  this  law  is  something  separate  and 
distinct  from  the  laws  which  mortal  man  has 
thrown  around  himself  by  lack  of  use  of  his  true 
mentality  for  the  milHons  of  years  he  has  been  on 
earth?  "Far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west — so  far 
are  my  ways  from  thy  ways  and  my  thoughts 
from  thy  thoughts,  saith  the  Lord."  Nobody 
denies  for  an  instant  that  doctors  temporarily 
cure  disease — but  why  not  appeal  to  God  and  rise 
permanently  in  consciousness  to  the  point  where 
you  become  subject  to  the  law  of  Spirit  (conscious 
of  oneness  with  God)  and  free  yourself  from  the 
"carnal  law"  which  is  made  by  carnal  man? 
Even  loss  of  your  so-called  ''mortal  life"  would 
not  be  too  great  a  price  to  pay  for  such  an  out- 
come. The  willingness  to  sacrifice  such  conscious- 
ness of  ''life"  for  infinite  principle  will  upraise 
consciousness  here  and  now  and  will  always  de- 
monstrate that  in  truth  adherence  to  God's  law 
through  any  trial  means  greater  consciousness  of 
real  life.     But  you  say  it  cannot  be  done  here. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       135 

Suppose  we  see  what  Jesus  says  about  it:  ''The 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  you. ' '  '  'Be  ye  there- 
fore perfect  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  Heaven 
is  perfect, "  and  by  the  way,  doesn't  this  sound  to 
you  a  good  deal  Hke  calHng  every  man  a  Son  of 
God  ?  ' '  This  is  eternal  life,  that  they  should  know 
Thee,"  the  only  true  God.  A  state  of  conscious- 
ness obtainable  now  at  least  to  some  extent,  if 
indeed  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  you. 
*'He  that  believeth  on  me,  the  works  that  I  shall 
do  shall  he  do  also."  'T  go  to  prepare  a  place 
for  you — that  where  I  am  there  ye  may  he  also." 
Remember  and  emphasize  here  again  what  has 
been  previously  said  concerning  human  life  as 
being  psychical  impulse  without  the  intervention 
of  matter.  Divine  Life  is  God  and  the  real 
man  is  His  image  and  likeness. 

"Well,"  you  say,  ''if  this  be  true,  why  has  it 
not  been  demonstrated?"  Jesus  the  Christ,  our 
way  shower  to  eternal  life,  did  prove  this  and  bade 
us  follow  him.  Do  you  think  he  would  have  done 
so  if  it  had  been  impossible,  or  if  he  had  known 
himself  as  set  apart  from  all  other  men  in  such  a 
way  that  no  other  could  follow  his  teaching? 
Don't  you  think  that  perhaps  men  have  failed 
just  because  they  have  not  understood  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Bible  with  reference  to  the  "carnal 
law"  and  the  "Spiritual  law" — because  they  have 
been  trying  to  progress  by  the  road  of  something 
which  they  have  thought  of  as  law,  but  which 
was  really  only  the  aggregate  of  their  own  human 


136  Christian  Science 

opinions,  mentally  enforced?  And  may  it  not 
be  that  by  learning  the  ''law  of  God"  and  by 
discarding  the  ''carnal  law, "  which  includes  all  of 
material  science  as  we  know  it,  ^  we  may  find  the 
way  by  which  the  things  which  Jesus  tells  us  are 
true  may  become  facts  in  life,  instead  of  distant 
abstractions  to  be  appHed  at  some  more  favorable 
time  and  occasion?  Think  it  over.  May  it  not 
be  that  we  have  been  giving  the  spiritual  law  only  a 
far-distant  and  impractical  bearing  in  our  lives 
by  not  exercising  our  faith  toward  it,  thus  losing 
our  knowledge  of  its  power? — a  knowledge  each 
can  gain  for  himself,  denying  the  power  of  accu- 
mulated false  opinion  and  using  spiritual  power  to 
bring  into  consciousness  the  true.  Which  would 
you  rather  tie  to.  Spirit  or  Matter?  God  or 
JMammon  ?     The  choice  must  be  made. 

If  I  understand  the  teachings  of  Christian 
Science,  they  do  not  state  that  disease  is  not  cured, 
to  mortal  sense,  by  material  means — they  simply 
say  that  it  is  not  permanently  so  cured — you  are 
still  in  the  labyrinth  of  human  confusion  and 
conflict  of  opinion.  I  do  not  know  how  I  can 
state  it  so  that  you  will  fully  apprehend  it — but 

*  I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  attempting  to  con- 
demn physical  science  or  its  study.  As  explanation  I  should 
surmise  that  the  principle  underlying  the  action  of  chemical 
substances  was  true,  but  the  ideas  of  matter  and  some  of  the 
application  thereof — a  part  of  the  law  of  "sin  and  death,"  but 
this  is  again  opinion;  it  is  difficult  to  separate  the  true  from  the 
false  with  the  physical  senses,  but  inharmony — negativeness — 
cannot  be  of  God. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       137 

for  myself,  I  know  that  this  labyrinth  is  not  real 
law,  and  that  the  law  of  God  is  something  differ- 
ent, even  the  thought  underlying,  in  which  there 
is  no  evil.  Think  of  what  has  been  said  of  fire 
which  will  not  burn.  Further,  I  know  that  it  is  a 
law  which  is  available  to  me  to-day,  if  I  can 
but  grasp  it  and  overcome  my  present  opposition 
to  it.  I  know  it  because  in  numberless  places 
Jesus  has  said  it,  and  because  I  feel  that  life  is 
Mind,  God.  Why  not  at  least  make  the  attempt 
to  understand  instead  of  refusing  to  do  so?  Is 
it  not  because  you  have  so  long  worshiped  some- 
thing which  is  not  God,  or  God's  law,  that  your 
human  senses  will  not  let  you  see  that  what  you 
have  worshiped  is  nothing  but  the  darkness  of 
mankind's  false  opinions,  and  not  law  at  all?  This 
is  the  condemnation,  that  light  is  come  into  the 
world  and  men  loved  darkness  rather  than  the  light. 
I  wish  I  could  say  something  which  would  make 
men  see  that  we  are  as  to  all  inharmony  (sin, 
sickness,  and  death)  just  wandering  in  the  darkness 
(absence  of  true  consciousness)  of  our  own  opinions 
(lack  of  thought)  and  calling  them  law — and  that 
God's  law  is  available  to  everyone — a  law  with  no 
evil  in  it.  If  everyone  understood  that  and 
practiced  it,  there  would  be  no  astonishment  at 
the  miracles  of  Jesus,  for  it  would  then  be  seen  that 
what  he  did  was  but  the  normal  thing — and  that 
the  life  we  now  are  conscious  of  is  abnormal, 
untrue — that  all  Jesus  did  vv^as  to  restore  to  the 
consciousness  of  those  he  healed,  their  true  condi- 


138  Christian  Science 

tion  as  children  of  God,  subject  to  His  law,  and 
freed  by  spiritual  truth  from  the  tyranny  of  their 
own  accumulated  mental  falsities.  ^  This  does  not 
destroy  anything  good  or  beautiful  you  now 
know.  "Ye  shall  know  the  truth  and  the  truth 
shall  make  you  free."  A  process  possible  now 
since  Jesus  demonstrated  it;  and  possible  even 
though  we  cannot  diagram  the  process. 

Further  read  your  Bible  and  see  if  you  do  not 
find  in  every  place  where  it  speaks  of  idolatry,  a 
strong  presumption  that  what  is  meant  is  the 
worship  of  the  carnal  law  and  carnal  body  which  is 
''enmity  to  God" — of  something  which  did  not 
spring  from  God  at  all,  but  from  a  sinful,  wander- 
ing, false,  human  sense — which  sets  up  idols  of 
its  own  opinions  and  worships  under  the  name  of 
"The  Law  of  God"  and  the  "Law  of  Nature" 
much  which  has  no  kinship  whatever  to  Him — 
who  is  altogether  Good  and  who  is  All.  See 
Amos  5 :  26. 

^  In  connection  with  the  remarks  in  this  chapter  concern- 
ing confusion  of  cures  of  diseases,  I  desire  to  call  the  reader's 
attention  again  to  the  passage  from  Doctor  Osier  quoted  elsewhere 
to  the  effect  that  "the  inevitable  conclusion  [of  many  modem 
physicians  including  scientists  in  Vienna]  is  that  most  drugs 
^have  no  effect  whatever  on  the  diseases  for  which  they  have  been 
given'''  and  that  "the  real  curative  agent  is  the  buoyant  mind," 
In  making  this  statement  absolutely  the  only  difference  between 
the  good  doctor  and  Mrs.  Eddy  is,  that  he  gives  credit  for  cure 
to  the  "buoyant"  human  mind,  while  Mrs.  Eddy  says  that  this 
mind  can  effect  no  permanent  cure — you  are  still  in  the  labyrinth 
— that  the  only  real  cure  is  to  rise  in  consciousness  to  the  point 
where  you  free  yourself  from  the  law  of  the  carnal  (human)  mind 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?        139 

Just  one  more  thought.  Have  you  ever  been 
fishing  with  a  couple  of  other  men,  and  seen  them 
tangle  up  their  lines?  Ten  to  one  if  you  have, 
one  of  them  was  of  that  type  of  mind  which,  when 
it  seeks  to  untangle  a  fish  line,  pulls  here,  pulls 
there,  and  behold  it  is  done;  while  the  other  was 
of  that  type  which  cannot  untangle  a  line  without 
putting  the  end  hack  through  every  hole  that  shows 
itself,  and  if  you  tried  to  tell  him  how  to  do  it  an 
other  way,  he  couldn't  see  it,  so  you  just  sat  down 
and  helped  him  put  the  end  through.  Now  it  oc- 
curs to  me  that  if  life  be  continuous,  we  have  had 
plenty  of  time  to  tangle  up  our  fish  lines.  It  also 
appears  that  the  doctors  are  helping  to  untangle 
them  along  with  the  chemists  by  putting  the  end 
back  through  all  the  holes,  while  the  Christian 
Scientists  are  doing  the  same  thing  in  another, 
and  as  I  believe,  a  better  way.  It  also  appears 
that  there  will,  for  some  considerable  time  yet, 
be  a  few  people  on  earth  who  cannot  see  that  there 
is  a  quick  way  to  untangle  their  lines,  even  though 
Jesus  points  the  way  through  faith  and  absolute 
trust  in  God  and  His  wSon  Jesus  Christ.  And  if  so, 
why  not  help  them  in  the  way  that  seems  best 
to  them,  a7id  why  not  help  the  doctors  to  do  it  also. 
We  are  all  going  to  the  same  station  by  different 

which  is  "enmity  to  God,"  and  become  subject  to  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  God's  law,  which  is  an  entirely  different  thing.  If  Dr. 
Osier's  statement  be  true,  is  it  not  an  evidence  of  the  truth  of  my 
statement  that  unending  cures  which  are  not  cures  have  been 
used  by  men? 


140  Christian  Science 

roads,  but  if  we  are  patient  we  will  all  get  there, 
for  it  is  "your  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you 
the  kingdom"  (Bible),  or  knowledge  of  Him  and  of 
yourself. 

Now,  I  know  all  about  the  argument  that  when 
you  depend  on  something  not  God,  you  dishonor 
Him.  I  believe  that  it  is  right  too,  and  that  what 
God  cannot  do,  no  one  else  can,  but  after  all, 
granting  that  it  is  a  kind  of  faith  in  medicine  that 
cures,  even  though  not  the  best  kind,  and  cure  is 
good  for  men,  don't  you  think  that  perhaps  if 
one  of  God's  children  cannot  see  and  understand 
the  best  way,  God  will  lead  him  through  other  ways, 
and  lesser  degrees  of  faith,  till  he  does,  and  isn't 
it  God  who  is  in  everything  Good,  including  the 
kind  of  faith  required  for  a  medical  cure?  (That 
isn't  saying  that  cure  is  in  the  medicine.)  Grant- 
ing that  that  cure  [which  is,  as  I  understand  it 
from  a  Science  point  of  view,  made  by  negative 
action  (mortal  mind)]  is  not  permanent,  isn't  it  a 
step  leading  in  the  direction  of  further  understand- 
ing, perhaps  by  a  needlessly  long  route,  but  none 
the  less  a  route?  I  can  see  why  it  is  not  possible 
for  the  Christian  Scientists  and  the  doctors  to 
work  together.  Their  thoughts  antagonize  to-day, 
but  if  any  given  person  cannot  accept  and  trust  in 
Christian  Science  as  yet,  are  not  the  medical 
failures  to  permanently  cure  a  way  toward  the 
truth  for  that  person?  Is  not  the  doctor  himself 
forced  to  progress  and  is  he  not  going  as  straight  as 
his  methods  can  lead  him  to  the  conclusion  that 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality  ?       141 

God  is  the  only  cure  ?  Please  note  that  this  is  not 
saying  that  the  time  has  not  yet  arrived  when  we 
can  use  Spirit  to  cure.  If  that  were  true,  I  do  not 
see  how  I  could  believe  implicitly  in  the  commands 
and  truth  of  Jesus,  for  he  certainly  says,  ''Be  ye 
therefore  perfect."  And  now  is  the  accepted 
time.  Remember  here  again  that  life  is  Mind 
alone.  All  I  am  saying  is  that  there  will  be  some 
persons  who  cannot  or  will  not  untangle  their 
lines  in  the  best  way,  and  for  those  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  medical  profession  should  be  recognized 
as  helpful  in  this  hour.  Can  it  not  therefore  be 
true  that  a  medical  man  whose  work  is  consecrated 
to  the  glory  of  God  (and  whose  daily  labor  is  done 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  fact  that  his  researches 
are  leading  him  and  others  to  that  goal)  can  be  in 
his  time  and  place  an  inspiration  and  a  help  to 
those  who  are  not  yet  ready  to  accept  the  other 
path?  I  should  say  it  all  depended  on  where  that 
medical  man  placed  his  faith' — on  things  of  the 

^  For  the  sake  of  clearness  I  wish  again  to  state  that  my  idea 
of  this  "mind"  which  "perceives"  evil  is,  that  it  is  simply  nega- 
tive, the  aggregate  of  what  man  has  not  accomplished  in  his 
march  toward  Truth.  Therefore  it  is  a  conflict  of  terms  to  regard 
this  mind  as  having  "faith,"  which  is  a  positive  quality  of  that 
mind  which  is  always  directed  toward  Truth.  Wherever  I  use 
positive  terms  in  describing  the  processes  of  the  human  mind, 
please  understand  that  it  is  the  weakness  of  language  which 
makes  me  do  so.  I  believe  that  this  inertia  which  I  feel  in  myself 
and  which  causes  me  to  perceive  suffering  when  I  come  in  contact 
with  God's  true  law  (never  changing  and  always  right  and  good) 
is  something  mental  {i.  e.,  false  psychic  inertia)  in  which  all 
men  share  alike,  and  that  all  human  mortal  life  is  "false  men- 


142  Christian  Science 

earth — matter,  germs,  misery — or  on  God.  In  one 
case,  his  Hfe  will  be  directed  toward  understanding 
of  God  through  the  means  at  his  command,  which, 
while  perhaps  not  the  best  means,  are  none  the  less 
a  means,  and  his  influence  likewise;  in  the  other 
case,  toward  a  greater  and  greater  belief  in  ma- 
terial things.  "Where  your  treasure  is,  there  will 
your  heart  be  also"  (Bible). 


tal  influence"  or  "psychic  inertia"  without  the  intervention 
of  a  particle  of  matter.  If  then  that  which  we  call  evil, 
which  is  a  sense  of  separation  from  God  (matter),  inharmony 
and  the  like,  is  all  caused  by  false  consciousness  or  suffering  in 
the  midst  of  truth,  and  none  of  it  attributable  to  God  or  a  part  of 
His  quality,  it  appears  also  that  God  being  All,  inert  mind  cannot 
be,  even  though  human  logic  and  false  sense  try  to  say  it  has 
being.  Therefore  let  us  exercise  our  faith  toward  the  truth 
which  appears  to  come  from  God  and  not  lack  of  intelligence 
toward  that  which  calls  itself  truth  and  founds  its  testimony  on 
itself  or  sense.  Remember  what  Jesus  says  concerning  that 
testimony  which  is  of  self  alone  being  untrue.  It  doesn't  satisfy 
to  say  that,  "God  gave  dominion  to  man  over  all  the  earth, 
knowing  as  He  must  have  known  that  it  would  be  misused." 
There  is  something  hid  here,  possibly  that  which  is  guarded  by 
the  angels  at  the  gates  of  Eden,  something  not  understood,  but 
because  we  don't  understand  it,  let  us  not  make  our  own  weakness 
the  basis  for  denying  the  goodness  of  All,  which  is  another  name 
for  God.  Neither  does  it  satisfy  to  say,  as  the  Occultists  do,  that 
God,  through  love,  allowed  the  kind  of  manifestation  which 
produces  evil  in  order  that  we  might  have  life.  To  say  that 
God  could  not  give  life  without  this,  is  degrading  one's  idea  of 
Him.  This  is  the  one  mystery.  The  day  will  come  when  it  will 
be  solved,  and  meantime,  let  us  hold  to  the  safe  course  of  affirm- 
ing God's  Infinite  goodness  in  the  face  of  appearance,  even 
though  that  affirmation  deny  reality  to  many  things  which  to-day 
seem  real,  and  when  we  finally  know  the  truth,  untruth  will  not 
even  seem  to  be  and  we  will  then  know  the  answer  to  the  mystery. 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       143 

Perhaps  here  is  where  I  should  say  a  few  things 
possibly  not  clearly  set  forth  elsewhere  regarding 
the  medical  profession.  I  have  been  accused 
by  friends  who  have  read  other  writings  of  mine, 
of  being  unfair  to  it. 

I  can  only  answer  that  I  have  tried  not  to  be  so. 
I  have  attempted,  at  least,  to  state  that  which 
appears  to  me  to  be  an  influence  for  good  in  that 
profession,  as  well  as  that  which  appears  to  me  to 
be  an  influence  for  evil,  but  that  I  may  be  clearly 
understood  I  here  state  again  as  follows. 

From  my  point  of  view,  the  doctors  undoubtedly 
deserve  unstinted  credit  for  the  devotion  with 
which  they  have  investigated  the  operations  of 
the  ''Law  of  sin  and  death."  Unquestionably, 
they  have  thrown  great  light  on  the  details  of  that 
law.  Unquestionably  they  have  learned  a  great 
deal  about  the  *'how"  of  man's  sinking  into  this 
dream  of  "material"  phenomena.  Unquestion- 
ably also  they  have  in  great  measure  helped  man- 
kind to  rise  by  the  unraveling  process  from  many 
of  the  false  mental  states  which  have  in  the  past 
obsessed  them.  They  have  from  my  point  of 
view  been  doing  all  the  time  something  different 
from  what  they  thought  they  were  doing.  They 
have  stamped  out  epidemics  but  not  by  the  means 
they  thought  they  used.  The  result  has  been  the 
same,  and  for  the  result  they  deserve  the  utmost 
credit. 

The  knowledge  they  have  of  the  suppositional 
law  of  "sin  and  death"  undoubtedly  has  been  and 


144  Christian  Science 

can  be  used  as  a  way  for  the  advancement  of  men, 
by  teaching  them  what  mental  states  they  should 
avoid,  and  by  using  the  force  of  majority  opinion. 
I  do  not  think  it  the  best  or  true  way,  but  it  is 
none  the  less  a  way.  AVhere  the  knowledge  is 
wisely  used  it  can  help,  but  there  are  very  many 
cases  in  which  it  is  not  wisely  used. 

Let  me  ask  you  to  consider  this  proposition — 
i.  e.j  that  the  effort  of  very  many  medical  men  is 
directed  toward  using  knowledge  as  a  means  of 
centering  the  patient's  attention  on  his  symptoms 
instead  of  away  from  them,  and  that  they  give 
me7ital  conditions  little  or  no  consideration.  Is 
it  true  or  is  it  not?  Answer  the  question  for 
yourself. 

Let  me  give  you  two  examples.  A  friend  of 
mine  has  an  open  wound,  the  result  of  an  injury. 
His  doctor  came  to  him  and  said,  "It's  doing 
splendidly,  but  if  it  begins  to  turn  a  certain  color 
around  the  edges  you  must  look  out." 

Now  I  ask  you  what  possible  good  could  the  last 
part  of  this  sentence  have  done.  The  doctor  had 
ample  opportunity  for  observing  the  wound 
himself.  Why  leave  the  patient  with  an  itching 
desire  to  remove  the  bandage  every  ^yq  minutes 
in  order  to  make  sure  that  the  color  of  the  wound 
was  not  changing? 

Again  I  have  a  friend  in  a  distant  city  whose 
life  was  misery  for  two  years  because  he  was 
told  that  he  ''might  have"  a  disease  which  subse- 
quent observation  proved  that  he  did  not  have  at 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       145 

all.  Not  only  was  he  told  that  he  "might  have" 
this  disease  but  he  was  informed  in  great  detail  of 
all  the  things  which  ''might  happen"  to  him  as  a 
consequence,  and  he  went  around  in  a  daylight 
nightmare  for  a  long  time  in  consequence.  Now 
the  doctor  had  again  ample  opportunity  to  observe 
the  patient,  and  waiting  a  while  would  have  proved 
to  his  own  satisfaction  the  untruth  even  from  a 
medical  standpoint  of  his  suppositions.  Even 
supposing  that  it  was  necessary  to  tell  the  patient 
the  bare  fact  of  suspected  possibility,  was  it 
necessary  to  draw  mind  pictures  of  all  the  final 
consequences,  to  sketch  the  experience  of  all  the 
patients  the  doctor  had  ever  had  who  suffered 
with  the  "disease"  {i.  e.,  false  consciousness 
proceeding  from  the  "law  of  sin  and  death")? 

Perhaps  you  can  see  that,  regarding  life  as  I  do 
as  purely  mind  and  nothing  else,  I  can  find  no  word 
to  adequately  portray  this  kind  of  thing.  I 
merely  submit  it  and  the  following  in  a  spirit  of 
love  to  the  serious  consideration  of  progressive, 
thoughtful  medical  men. 

Personally,  I  beHeve  that  while  doctors  have 
done  much  good  in  unraveling  past  mental  errors, 
they  have  also  done  some  evil  by  supplying  in  the 
place  of  that  which  they  have  unraveled  a  more 
insidious  tangle  than  previously  existed,  for  as  I 
have  elsewhere  stated,  I  believe  that  it  is  possible 
through  the  unconscious  mental  effect  of  majority 
opinion  communicable,  without  words,  life  being 
purely  mental,  to  set  up  new  "laws"  of  health  in 


146  Christian  Science 

the  "law  of  sin  and  death,"  which  will  be  just  as 
thoroughly  enforced  mentally  as  the  ''laws"  which 
by  their  worthy  efforts  the  doctors  have  in  the  past 
been  instrumental  in  destroying.  The  old-fash- 
ioned diseases  which  people  took  as  a  matter  to 
be  met  with  in  passing  along  the  road  we  call  "life, " 
and  took  in  a  common-sense  manner,  are  nothing 
when  compared  with  the  nightmarish  inventions 
now  being  enforced  in  this  merely  mental  life  of 
ours  by  means  of  moving  pictures,  medical  thought, 
and  magazine  articles  on  "germs,"  blood  tests, 
and  the  like.  What  the  medical  profession,  ably 
aided  hy  all  mankind  in  general,  are  doing  from  this 
point  of  view  is  first  to  manufacture  a  belief  in  a 
"germ"  and  then  go  to  work  to  tell  each  other 
how  to  avoid  that  which  they  themselves  have 
illuded  into  seeming  existence.  And  if  you  will 
consider  again  the  possibility  that  life  is  mental 
"without  the  interposition  of  one  particle  of 
matter"  you  will  see  that  this  is  no  impossibility, 
though  I  do  not  state  it  dogmatically.  It  is 
merely  the  understanding  now  held  by  many 
sincere  people  who  draw  their  beliefs  from  the 
teachings  of  the  Bible. 

I  know  doctors  who  realize  that  life  is  largely 
mental,  who  are  using  their  knowledge  of  the  "law 
of  sin  and  death"  to  wean  people  gradually  away 
from  that  mass  of  errors  for  which  no  one  class  of 
men  are  exclusively  responsible.  They  call  this 
medical  prevention;  ^'keepifig  people  well."  It  is 
these  men  who  ennoble  the  profession,  it  is  these 


Does  Matter  Have  Reality?       147 

men  who  as  fast  as  some  horror  is  invented,  use 
their  knowledge  of  that  horror  to  good  purpose. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  doctors  not  a  few 
whose  presence  in  the  room  brings  with  it  the 
shroud  and  the  casket,  and  whose  influence  is 
directed  toward  proving  by  the  knowledge  they 
have  of  a  law  which  is  not  God's  law,  that  the 
life  they  know  is  the  only  kind  of  life — and  that 
the  only  God  is  Chemistry.  I  feel  sure  that  such 
will  one  day  be  turned  in  God's  way  to  the  Know- 
ing of  Universal  and  all-surrounding  Love. 

I  hope  I  have  made  it  plain  that  to  me,  life 
being  purely  mental,  it  is  not  the  knowledge  or  the 
existence  of  the  medical  profession  that  is  at  fault. 
It  is  the  use  being  made  of  that  knowledge  by 
individuals — who  with  the  best  of  motives  seem 
to  me  to  be  making  a  terrible  mistake,  based  on 
the  supposition  that  ** material"  life  is  and  is  the 
only  hfe.  In  every  walk  in  life  there  are  those  who 
use  their  knowledge  to  the  glory  of  God  wisely  to 
the  benefit  of  mankind,  and  there  are  also  those 
who  use  their  knowledge,  to  be  sure  with  good 
intent  and  earnest  motive,  to  the  abasing  of  man's 
idea  of  God.  The  medical  profession  is  no  excep- 
tion to  this  rule. 

Lest  I  be  at  all  misunderstood  I  desire  again  to 
here  express  my  conviction  that  the  ''law  of  sin 
and  death"  is  not  law,  and  that  de^spite  its  seem- 
ing strength  there  is  nothing  stated  in  it  which 
need  be  feared  when  consciousness  is  lifted  up  as 
outlined  in  the  last  chapter  to  a  knowledge  of  the 


148  Christian  Science 

Law  of  the  Spirit  of  Life  in  Christ  Jesus.  "And 
I,  if  I  be  hfted  up  will  draw  all  men  unto  me'* 
(Bible). 

The  medical  profession  is  noble  or  ignoble 
according  to  its  use,  but  what  it  can  never  do, 
real  law  can. 

Finally  I  end  this  chapter  as  others  by  saying 
*'Try  this  way,  for  only  by  demonstration  can  you 
understand  it."  What  you  cannot  by  any  means 
do  when  you  lose  sight  of  the  allness  of  God  and 
the  unreality  of  matter,  you  can  do  when  you  hold 
these  firmly  in  mind. 


CHAPTER  V. 

DOES  EVIL  HAVE  REALITY? 

Whenever  I  start  a  chapter  as  above,  which 
heading  apparently  can  only  be  answered  by  a 
dogmatic  statement,  I  find  myself  inclined  to 
apologize  to  my  reader,  or  at  least  to  explain  that 
I  am  not  in  any  sense  trying  to  make  dogmatic 
statements  concerning  matters  which  have  been 
the  source  of  discussion  since  the  world  began. 
I  do  not  pretend  that  the  answers  which  I  shall 
give — which  seem  to  me  to  contain  some  of  the 
truth — are  final  answers,  for  the  nature  of  the 
problem  is  such  that  necessarily  there  remains 
much  to  be  discovered,  since  we  know  now  but 
little  of  the  Infinite.  All  I  am  trying  to  do  is  to 
give,  in  as  plain  a  Vv^ay  as  possible,  some  things 
which  have  come  into  my  mind,  and  which  seem 
to  supply  at  least  a  basis  for  believing  as  I  do. 
I  do  not  expect  my  readers  necessarily  to  agree 
with  me.  I  only  hope,  as  1  have  previously 
several  times  said,  that  the  wanderings  of  one 
man  in  the  domain  of  the  spiritual  realm  will  help 
other  men  who  read  of  them  to  press  forward  in 
their  own  search  for  Truth,  God. 

149 


I50  Christian  Science 

And  right  here  let  me  say  a  few  words  concerning 
that  person  who  turns  around  and  ceases  to 
struggle  toward  truth,  because  the  views  he  is 
asked  to  consider  controvert  ''the  wisdom  of  the 
ages."  Again  there  are  many  of  these  who  are 
my  very  good  friends,  and  what  I  say  concerning 
this  attitude  of  mind  is  without  criticism.  Each 
man  must  build  his  own  pathway  and  I  must 
build  mine  in  the  way  that  seems  to  me  best, 
after  I  have  sought  Divine  guidance,  as  must 
everyone.  But  to  return.  If  it  be  true,  as  the 
Bible  specifically  states,  that  there  are  two  laws 
surrounding  men — one  the  *'Law  of  sin  and 
death, "  the  other  the  "Law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in 
Christ  Jesus" — those  of  mortal  and  spiritual  mind 
respectively,  may  it  not  be  true  that  much  of  the 
so-called  "wisdom  of  the  ages"  is  the  kind  of 
wisdom  which  the  Bible  says  is  "foolishness  with 
God"?  And  may  it  not  be  true  that  it  is  a  kind  of 
** wisdom"  which  we  would  do  well  to  get  over  as 
soon  as  possible? 

Right  here  seems  to  be  the  point  of  departure 
between  physical  science  and  Christian  Science. 
The  one  deals  with  the  history  of  mortal  mind 
under  which  are  included  all  so-called  inharmoni- 
ous facts  about  the  body — the  other  deals  with  a 
law  beyond  that  made  by  man  for  his  own  conduct, 
which  is  not  now  clearly  understood  save  by  the 
exercise  of  that  faith  and  intuition  which  brings 
into  substance  the  things  hoped  for.  Let  me  make 
myself  plain.     If  I  understand  Christian  Science 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?         151 

correctly,  it  says  mortal  mind  seems  to  build  its 
own  body,  to  false  sense  it  reverses  God's  plan  of 
body,  and  in  the  course  of  the  millions  of  years 
which  even  conventional  science  grants  to  the 
development  of  man,  mortal  man  has  himself 
made  his  own  consciousness  of  the  laws  of  body, 
the  laws  of  chemistry, — as  we  know  tliem^ — and 
all  the  other  "wisdom  of  the  ages."  The  theoso- 
phists  make  the  same  statements  except  that  they 
say  mortal  mind  builds  its  own  body,  i.  e.,  they 
grant  reality  to  matter. 

To  be  sure,  these  laws  of  sin  and  death  (false 
psychic  inertias,  not  ''matter")  have  underlying 
them  a  divine  plan  (true  spiritual  influences) — 
* 'underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms"  (Bible) — 
the  consciousness  admitted  to  be  in  the  atom  by 
chemists  in  truth,  but  the  sense  of  that  truth  has 
been  distorted  by  the  false  sense  of  matter  as  real 
and  all  wisdom  has  seemed  tinged  with  this  falsity 
or  the  externality  of  sensible  objects  to  mind. 
This  is  not  real  wisdom  since  inharmony  cannot 
belong  to  God  but  is  "foolishness  with  God," 
for  underneath  is  His  Divine  plan.  It  is  a  false 
consciousness  of  things  which  are  essentially  true 
and  is  induced  by  human  belief  or  psychic  inertias 
arising  from  the  aggregate  of  false  opinions.  Among 
these  opinions  is  the  sense  of  separation  from  the 
One  Mind  and  division  into  many  minds,  though 
individuality  as  an  expression  of  Mind  is  true. 
Can  you  not  see  that  from  this  point  of  view,  much 

^  See  note  page  136. 


152  Christian  Science 

of  the  *' wisdom  of  the  ages"  is  something  to  be 
gotten  over  and  forgotten  just  as  soon  as  possible? 
I  do  not  say  all  because  we  must  have  gone  some 
way  back  on  our  homeward  journey,  but  those 
things  producing  limitation  and  inharmony  in 
consciousness  cannot  be  of  God.  Can  you  not 
see  also  that  the  attainment  of  true  knowledge,  or 
that  which  is  wisdom  to  God,  is  dependent  on  the 
willingness  to  admit  the  possible  fallibility  of 
mortal  "truth"  and  to  perceive  immortal  truth  by 
the  exercise  of  the  faith  which  brings  into  sub- 
stance the  things  hoped  for?  Again  can  you  not 
see  that  the  Christian  Scientist  and  the  doctor 
when  they  discuss  these  subjects  are  talkmg  about 
two  different  laws  when  they  speak  of  law?  The 
Christian  Scientist  admits  that  to  mortal  sense 
(which  itself  has  built  the  false  laws  of  body) 
there  seems  to  be  an  inharmonious  "law  of  nature." 
They  do  not  deny  that  to  the  doctor,  all  the  things 
he  tells  one  about  germs  seem  (to  him  and  others) 
to  be  true,  when  judged  by  the  physical  senses,  but 
they  say  this  is  of  that  wisdom  which  is  "foolish- 
ness with  God,"  because,  producing  inharmon}^, 
it  cannot  be  of  God  and  must  be  produced  by 
false  mind — a  dream  of  separation  from  God.  The 
sooner  you  raise  your  consciousness  above  these, 
to  the  real  law  which  is  God's  wisdom^  the  better. 

The  doctor  and  the  Scientist  are  like  two  imagi- 
nary persons  standing  on  the  seashore — one  of 
them  is  equipped  with  eyes  which  see  water 
only  and  the  other  is  equipped  with  eyes  which  see 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  153 

land  only.  You  say  this  is  an  impossible  example. 
But  is  it?  Even  orthodox  scientists  tell  us  that 
if  there  be  living  beings  on  other  planets,  they 
must,  in  some  cases,  be  living  without  air.  It  is 
granted  that  the  example  will  probably  not  happen 
on  this  planet  at  once,  but  is  it  impossible  to 
conceive  of  a  consciousness  so  equipped  that  it 
could  see  only  water  and  another  so  equipped 
that  it  could  see  only  land?  And  if  it  seems  im- 
possible to  you,  think  again  of  Mr.  Huxley's 
conclusion  regarding  the  qualities  which  may  not 
exist  in  things.  If  you  will  stop  for  a  minute 
and  think  you  will  see  that  here  is  a  very  nice 
opportunity  for  debate  without  end,  and  the 
Christian  Scientist  is  therefore  wise  to  avoid  the 
discussion,  as  would  be  the  doctor.  (I  am  in- 
debted, by  the  way,  for  the  illustration  above  to 
Mr.  C.  W.  Leadbeater.) 

But  to  return  again.  Frankly  it  seems  to  me 
that  those  who  say  that  they  will  not  consider  a 
subject  because  it  controverts  things  supposed  to 
be  truth  are  making  a  mistake.  It  also  seems  to 
me  that  those  who  take  the  attitude  that  they 
will  not  consider  a  subject  because  it  seems  to  them 
to  be  "extreme"  are  making  a  like  mistake.  It 
is  probable  that  those  persons  who  adopt  a  middle 
course,  either  through  timidity  or  extreme  of 
caution,  are  in  this  world  happier,  but  can  they 
learn  as  fast?  Can  they  progress  toward  Truth? 
Suppose  one  adopts  an  "extreme"  attitude  which 
is  wrong,  will  he  not  sooner  learn  the  wrong  and 


154  Christian  Science 

abandon  it  than  that  person  who  simply  skims 
the  edges  of  the  wrong,  and  therefore  can  con- 
tinuously deceive  himself  as  to  its  being  wrong? 
I  know  that  this  is  a  dangerous  doctrine,  for  there 
are  many  good  people  who  will  understand  me  to 
have  said  that  I  advocate  sinning  as  a  means  of 
education.  None  the  less,  I  stick  to  my  opinion 
that  if  a  person  has  to  sin,  a  real  hard  working 
sinner  will  probably  turn  around  and  go  in  the 
other  direction  sooner  than  he  who  merely  flirts 
around  the  edges.  Like  the  little  child  who  hurts 
himself,  he  will  sooner  come  with  his  trouble  to  the 
consciousness  that  he  needs  his  Heavenly  Father. 
I  have  heard  evangelists  say  pretty  nearly  the 
same  thing,  only  they  didn't  know  they  were 
saying  it.  You  see,  I  can  account  for  the  possi- 
bility of  a  good  God  only  on  the  supposition  that 
some  people  are  ''born"  to  a  consciousness  of 
such  surroundings  here  that  they  cannot  do  much 
but  sin.  The  Bible  says,  ''The  fathers  have 
eaten  sour  grapes,  and  the  children's  teeth  are 
set  on  edge."  They  are  so  situated  because 
human  belief  has  created  a  false  consciousness 
which  now  seems  to  separate  them  from  God ;  and 
appears  to  create  also  their  present  sense  of 
*' external"  surroundings,  which  are  really  mental 
(psychic)  inertias  within  their  own  false  conscious- 
ness and  are  induced  by  human  false  opinions. 
I  am  also  forced  to  believe  that  such  will  have  a 
chance  to  learn  not  to  sin  somewhere  else,  if  they 
do  not  learn  here.     If  I  believed   that   this  was 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  155 

the  only  opportunity,  I  would  have  a  hard  time  to 
believe,  at  the  same  time,  that  God  is  or  that  He 
is  Good.  I  cannot  see  salvation  save  through 
progress  in  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  and  his 
life,  and  this  short  span  of  human  existence  may 
be  insufficient  for  that.  Though  if  indeed  there 
be  a  different  law  of  consciousness  than  that  which 
we  have  called  law,  progress  may  be  much  faster 
than  we  anticipate,  since  all  that  is  needed  is  the 
attainment  of  spiritual  consciousness. 

Perhaps  this  is  as  good  a  place  as  any  for  me  to 
say  something  to  those  many  people  who  feel 
that  the  war  in  Europe  is  an  indication  of  the 
failure  of  the  principles  of  Christianity  and  a 
further  indication  of  the  fact  that  humanity  is 
going  backward  instead  of  forward.  Of  course, 
from  a  strictly  Christian  Scientist's  point  of  view, 
no  one  is  really  being  killed  in  this  war.  Those 
who  appear  to  be  killed  are  merely  carrying  on 
their  consciousness  elsewhere  until  all  false  belief 
of  life  apart  from  God  is  destroyed,  but  that  I 
suppose  is  something  which  is  not  necessary  to 
discuss  here.  Christian  Scientists  I  believe  all 
lament  the  thoughts  of  the  carnal  mind,  hatred, 
jealousy,  and  all  inharmony,  which  are  the  cause 
of  the  war  and  which,  from  a  Christian  Science 
point  of  view,  undoubtedly  have  a  far-reaching 
effect  everywhere  as  thoughts  in  affecting  the  con- 
sciousness of  humanity.  As  I  have  said  previously, 
it  can  be  demonstrated  that  the  unspoken  thought 
is    as    potent  a   mental  influence  for  others  as 


15^  Christian  Science 

the  spoken  word.  Mind  is  all.  However,  let 
me  ask  you  this:  Do  you  not  find  it  somewhat 
difficult  to  assess  the  responsibility  for  this  war 
and  the  misery  attendant  upon  it  (whether  you 
regard  that  misery  as  mental  or  material)  against 
God  ?  Can  you  do  this  and  at  the  same  time  beheve 
that  there  is  a  God  and  that  the  God  who  is 
Eternal  Life  and  Love,  All,  is  also  cognizant  of 
this  evil  war?  I  frankly  say  that  I  cannot  and 
that  if  I  believed  that  God  was  in  any  sense 
responsible  for  this  kind  of  misery,  I  would  be 
forced  by  that  belief  to  give  up  my  belief  in  a 
God  who  is  Good  and  All  Powerful. 

Just  as  a  suggestion  for  you  to  consider:  May  it 
not  be  that  the  war,  the  thoughts  of  hatred,  human 
will,  greed,  personal  ambition,  and  the  misery 
attendant  upon  them,  are  part  of  the  "Law  of 
sin  and  death,"  for  which  humanity  alone  is 
responsible?  May  it  not  be  that  these  things 
are  part  of  that  so-called  law  which  mortals  for 
millions  of  years  have  been  building?  Is  it  not  a 
part  of  the  love  of  "material"  things — for  can  you 
name  any  cause  of  this  or  any  other  war  that  does 
not  have  its  root  in  mortal  mind  and  its  manifes- 
tation "matter,"  the  source  of  all  evil?  And 
may  it  not  also  be  true  on  the  principle  that  I 
have  just  enunciated,  that  he  who  takes  an  extreme 
attitude  will  sooner  return  like  a  tired  child  to  his 
Heavenly  Father?  May  it  not  be  true,  that 
through  the  misery  attendant  upon  this  war, 
the  hold  of  men  upon  material  things  will  be  to 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  157 

some  extent  loosened,  so  that  they  can  learn 
that  the  things  of  Spirit,  the  things  of  the  law  of 
Jesus  Christ,  are  the  only  things  that  are  worth 
seeking?  "By  his  stripes  we  are  healed."  I 
declare  it  as  my  conviction  for  myself,  that 
whether  I  can  see  this  as  a  fact  in  consciousness 
or  not ;  I  am  none  the  less  going  to  assert  it.  For  to 
believe  that  God  has  anything  whatever  to  do 
with  war  and  its  attendant  miseries,  would  be 
denying  that  idea  of  God  which  is  a  necessity  to 
existence,  and  rather  than  deny  Him,  we  should, 
no  matter  how  difficult,  deny  the  belief  which 
dishonors  Him. 

"He  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world,  shall 
save  it  unto  life  eternal"  (John  12-15).  If  we 
all  really  lived  this  and  believed  truly  in  eternal 
life,  is  there  anything,  even  "a  shell  bursting  in 
the  back  yard,"  as  a  recent  newspaper  article 
phrases  it,  which  would  induce  in  us  the  thought 
of  injuring  another?    Think  it  over. 

Returning  to  our  subject,  however,  what  would 
become  of  our  great  inventors  and  indeed  of  the 
progress  of  the  world  in  the  expression  of  new  ideas 
of  God,  if  no  one  was  found  who  was  willing  to 
adopt  and  try  out  with  faith  an  "extreme" 
attitude?  How  many  were  there  who  called 
Edison  "extreme"  while  his  inventions  were  yet 
in  the  form  of  a  faith  which  is  the  "substance  of 
things  hoped  for"?  I  remember  very  clearly  that 
less  than  thirty  years  ago,  my  own  father  told  me 
that  he  had   seen  a  self-propelled  vehicle  on  the 


15^  Christian  Science 

street,  but  that  the  general  opinion  was  that  the 
idea  would  not  amount  to  much,  because  such  a 
vehicle  would  not  "obtain  traction."  He  was  a 
banker  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  good  bankers 
of  that  time  often  refused  to  loan  money  to  makers 
of  such  vehicles  because  they  were  ''visionary," 
which  is  another  word  for  ''extreme."  And  yet 
because  somebody  had  faith  in  the  "substance  of 
things  hoped  for"  and  was  willing  to  pin  that 
faith  on  something  which  seemed  to  the  good 
banker  "extreme"  a  great  industry  has  been 
built  up,  a  new  idea  out  of  the  universal  mind 
(true  at  base  even  though  surrounded  by  false  con- 
ceptions of  "matter")  given  expression,  and  many 
men  brought  thereby  nearer  to  God.  You  see  I 
am  not  denying  the  utility  of  the  good  things  of 
the  world  as  a  means  of  advancing  men,  or  their 
reality,  only  denying  reality  to  the  false  conceptions 
of  men.  Christian  Science  destroys  nothing  of 
beauty  or  truth.  The  birds  sing  and  the  trees 
whisper  the  Love  of  God  only  the  more  truly 
when  the  false  sense  of  matter  and  evil  are  gone. 

Finally  when  you  get  a  demonstrable  truth, 
can  you  have  too  much  of  it? 

But  I  see  that  I  have  come  far  from  the  subject 
of  my  chapter,  so  let  us  return  to  what  seems  to 
me  to  be  the  truth  about  evil,  which  statement  is 
in  itself  an  example  of  the  weakness  of  the  English 
language,  since  there  can  be  no  truth  about  evil. 

I  start  this  subject  as  I  have  others,  by  saying 
that  the  idea  I  have  of  God  precludes  the  possibility 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  159 

of  evil  being  real;  therefore  though  my  senses  try 
to  tell  me  that  it  is  real,  I  deny  my  senses  rather 
than  deny  the  conception  of  God  which  is  a 
necessity  to  my  life.  But  are  there  any  other 
things  I  can  say  which  will  lead  me  to  the  point 
where  I  am  ready  to  leave  that  limited  instrument, 
the  human  mind,  and  rely  on  the  faith  which  is  the 
* '  substance  of  things  hoped  f or  "  ?  I  think  there  are. 
Refer  to  the  last  chapter  and  go  over  again  the 
conclusions  reached  about  the  existence  of  a 
sense  of  matter.  Then  ask  yourself — Have  I 
any  sensations  of  evil,  which  are  not  connected 
with  the  sense  of  matter  or  separation  from  God 
(a  synonym)?  If  you  can  think  of  any  let  me 
know  and  I  will  thank  you,  for  I  have  been  unable 
to  do  so.  Mind  you,  I  do  not  say  that  you  have 
not  some  sensations  connected  with  matter  which 
are  pleasurable  to  mortal  mind,  but  I  do  venture 
the  assertion  that  all  of  the  sense  of  evil  you  have 
is  connected  in  some  way  with  your  sense  of 
matter,  inertia,  i.  e.,  externality  to  One  Mind  of 
sensible  objects,  a  false  sense  of  separation  from 
the  spiritual  source  which  supplies  all  your  real 
needs.  ''By  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of 
the  mouth  of  God  shall  man  live'*  (Bible),  i,  e,, 
by  ideas  which  reflect  God. 

Suppose  we  comprise  the  sense  of  evil  in  the 
words  sin,  sickness,  and  death.  I  think  these 
three  words  pretty  well  cover  the  subject.  Very 
well,  what  is  the  sting  of  death?  Manifestly 
the  fear  of  the  loss  of  "material"  things  including 


i6o  Christian  Science 

a  material  body  to  the  one  who  passes  on  (though 
I  doubt  whether  that  sense  is  really  lost  until  the 
consciousness  rises  above  it),  and  a  sense  of  the 
loss  of  a  "material"  presence  to  those  who  remain 
— therefore,  we  are  accustomed  to  think  of  death 
as  an  evil,  but  that  sting  is  lost  when  the  con- 
sciousness of,  and  desire  for,  material  things 
leave  us.  If  you  realized  as  a  fact'  in  consciousness 
your  oneness  with  God  and  the  fact  that  all  you 
call  "matter"  is  in  reality  mortal  belief  (psychic 
inertia)  you  would  then  know  that  through  seem- 
ing death  you  lose  nothing  which  you  now  really 
have  (eternal  consciousness).  When  you  have 
raised  your  individual  consciousness  above  "false 
material  (psychic)  influences" — the  "carnal  law" 
— death  will  be  conquered  and  swallowed  up  in 
victory.  Jesus  says,  "He  that  hateth  his  life  in 
this  world  shall  save  it  unto  life  eternal"  (Bible). 
If  we  really  lived  the  spirit  of  this  saying,  would 
that  which  we  call  "death"  have  any  fear  for  us? 
Would  not  our  only  fear  be  that  of  breaking  the 
real  law  of  God?  Would  we  not  then  fear  to  fail  in 
that  love  toward  our  neighbor  which  He  commands, 
rather  than  fear  the  loss  of  "life"  or  some  other 
"material"  thing? — What  then  becomes  of  war? 

And  what  is  sickness?  Can  you  think  of  any 
so-called  sickness  (discomfort)  which  is  not  in 
some  way  connected  with  inertia  ("matter")? 
Even  the  sicknesses  which  we  are  accustomed  to 
label  mind  sicknesses  are  found,  on  analysis,  to  be 
connected  with  mortal  mind,  which  as  Mr.  Huxley 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  i6i 

has  rather  effectually  pointed  out  may  be  simply 
synonymous  with  the  sense  of  separation  from 
God,  and  even  if  you  cannot  see  this  to  be  true, 
you  would  not  be  conscious  of  these  and  would 
not  acquire  them  were  it  not  for  the  sense  of 
having  a  material  body. 

What  then  becomes  of  sin?  Can  you  think  of 
any  sin  which  is  not  connected  with  the  sense  of 
matter?  Don't  misunderstand — I  know  that  one 
can  sin  in  thought,  so-called;  but  what  sin  either 
of  thought  or  of  act  can  you  think  of  that  is  not 
connected  with  your  sense  of  matter?  I  cannot 
think  of  any.     Can  you? 

If  then  the  sense  of  sin  always  comes  about  be- 
cause of  the  sense  of  matter,  and  never  otherwise, 
is  it  not  true  that  when  you  rise  above  the  con- 
sciousness of  matter,  you  will  also  rise  above  the 
consciousness  of  a  sense  of  sin?  And  if  matter  be 
non-existent  is  it  not  also  a  necessary  consequence 
that  evil  be  so  also?  Except  as  a  false  conscious- 
ness in  mortal  man?  Inertia  =  a  negative  quality, 
therefore  not  of  God  as  defined  herein.  It  seems 
to  me  that  perception  of  matter  is  the  oyie  sin  or 
idolatry,  and  that  it  pertains  to  false  consciousness 
and  carnal  mind  alone;  is  not  of  God  and  not 
real,  though  it  is  not  denied  by  anyone  that  it 
seems  very  real  to  carnal  mind. 

I  am  willing  to  rest  this  case  here  so  far  as  my 
own  argument  is  concerned,  except  for  a  few 
suggestions.  Have  you  ever  taken  a  four-year- 
old  boy  for  a  walk  some  Sunday  afternoon,  and 


i62  Christian  Science 

met  on  the  street  a  poor  unfortunate  woman, 
bearing  in  her  face  the  signs  of  sin  which  should 
awaken  the  helpful  instincts  of  all  who  see  her? 
Did  the  boy  see  anything  evil?  Is  it  not  possible 
that  if  she  stopped  to  speak  to  him,  he  saw  through 
that  which  your  older  sense  of  the  reality  of  evil 
could  not  penetrate,  and  was  just  as  natural, 
unaffected,  and  happy  in  speaking  to  her  as  to 
another?  And  is  it  not  suggestive  that  the 
child  sees  not  evil,  and  only  learns  of  it  as  his 
sense  of  material  things  becomes  stronger?  Again, 
can  you  produce  in  the  child  mind  any  of  the  fear 
of  death  which  his  elders  have,  and  why  not? 
Further,  has  it  ever  seemed  strange  to  you  that  the 
little  child  cannot  locate  pain  without  your  help? 
Also  that  it  has  no  sense  of  sex? 

Have  you  ever  thought  about  darkness?  What 
is  darkness?  Merely  a  false  sense  of  the  absence 
of  light.  To  us  it  seems  to  be  something,  but  is 
nothing.  When  the  light  comes  in,  then  the  dark- 
ness is  not;  even  to  our  false  senses.  May  it  not 
be  that  this  suppositional  part  of  us,  which  we  call, 
for  want  of  a  better  name,  mortal  mind,  is  simply 
a  portion  of  the  belief  which  man  seems  to  be 
dreaming  for  a  short  period  compared  to  the  total 
existence — a  dream  which  has  pulled  down  the 
shades,  thinks  of  itself  falsely,  and  disappears  into 
nothingness?' 

^  Please  in  this  connection  review  what  has  been  said  on 
page  64,  paragraph  3,  regarding  Universal  and  Individual  con- 
sciousness. 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  163 

All  must  get  out  from  the  sense  of  mental 
darkness  which,  while  it  seems  real,  is  really 
nothing,  or  a  suppositional  absence  of  God,  since 
Infinite  God  cannot  in  reality  be  absent. 

Further  if  you  are  a  child  of  the  light,  will  you 
not  suffer  when  in  the  false  sense  of  darkness — 
just  as  a  fish  suffers  in  the  air — and  will  you  not 
continue  to  suffer  just  as  long  as  you  remain  in  the 
sense  of  darkness  {and  no  longer) ,  even  though  the 
darkness  be  nothing,  save  what  seems  to  you  to  be 
an  absence  of  God  ?  No,  I  cannot  see  how  you  can 
have  this  sense  if  you  believe  that  God  is  All,  but  I 
affirm  that  He  is  All  none  the  less,  because  I 
know  that  He  must  be,  and  I  would  deny  my 
material  senses  threefold,  rather  than  deny  Him. 
In  this  connection,  however,  please  review  the 
remarks  on  ''dreaming,"  on  page  48  of  this  book. 

And  this  brings  me  to  another  thought,  which 
has  been  much  with  me  of  late.  Have  you  ever 
considered  how  often  the  Bible  uses  the  words 
"light"  and  "darkness,"  and  how  persistently 
they  have  been  construed  to  mean  "good"  and 
"evil"?  And  had  you  thought  that  there  might 
be  here  a  hint  or  suggestion  intended  to  convey 
to  us  the  relation  between  matter  and  evil?  For 
what  makes  darkness?  The  interposition  of 
something  between  you  and  the  source  of  light, 
you  say.  Yes,  but  what  is  this  something? 
What  makes  the  night?  You  say  the  interposition 
of  the  earth  between  us  and  the  sun.  And  what  is 
the  earth  but  a  sense  of  matter?     And  if  you  did 


164  Christian  Science 

away  with  your  sense  of  matter  (raised  your 
consciousness  above  it),  would  there  be  any  dark- 
ness for  you,  or  any  shadow?  And  do  you  re- 
member that  the  Bible  says  of  God  "the  darkness 
and  the  light  are  both  alike  to  Him"?  And  how 
also  it  says  "this  is  the  condemnation  that  light 
has  come  into  the  world  and  men  loved  darkness 
rather  than  light"?  And  if  the  Bible  speaks  of 
darkness  as  synonymous  with  evil — and  that  is 
the  sense  in  which  it  has  been  mainly  interpreted 
— and  darkness  is  caused  by  a  sense  of  matter, 
do  we  not  come  back  to  our  original  proposition 
— things  equal  to  the  same  thing  are  equal  to 
each  other — and  force  ourselves  to  say: 

Darkness   =  sin,  according  to  the  Bible. 
Darkness   =  absence  of  light  according  to 

sense. 
Darkness   =  interposition  of  a  sense  of 

matter. 
Therefore     Sin  =  a  sense  of  matter  or  a  false 

sense  of  absence  of  Spirit ; 

i.  e.,  separation  from  God. 

But  you  say  very  logically,  if  the  sense  of  matter 
were  destroyed  the  sun  would  also  be  destroyed 
and  we  would  have  no  source  of  light.  That  is 
also  what  I  said  and  then  I  stopped  to  think  that 
possibly  that  would  not  be  true  to  my  spiritual 
senses.  For  what  does  the  Bible  say? — "The  sun 
shall  be  no  more  thy  light  by  day,  neither  for  bright- 
ness shall  the  moon  give  light   unto  thee  [i.  e.. 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  165 

consciousness  of  matter  as  source  of  light  shall  no 
longer  be  known],  but  the  Lord  shall  be  unto  thee 
an  everlasting  light  [no  night]  [i.  e.j  to  your  spiritual 
senses],  and  thy  God  thy  glory." 

''The  sun  shall  no  more  go  down,  neither  shall  thy 
moon  withdraw  itself  [i.  e.,  there  shall  no  longer  be  a 
sense  of  matter  interposed  between  you  and  the 
Source  of  light],  for  the  Lord  shall  be  thine  ever- 
lasting light  [i.  e.,  to  the  spiritual  senses],  and  the 
days  of  thy  mourning  [the  days  when  you  had 
consciousness  of  matter]  shall  be  ended." 

Does  not  this  seem  to  fit  in  remarkably  well 
with  what  I  have  been  saying?  "For  behold  I 
create  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  [without 
matter]  and  the  former  shall  not  be  remembered 
nor  come  into  mind.''  (Does  not  this  sound  like  a 
state  of  consciousness?) 

Listen  also  to  the  words  of  Jesus:  "Ye  are  of 
your  father,  the  devil  [personified  evil] ;  when  he 
speaketh  a  lie  he  speaketh  of  his  own  for  he  is  a 
liar  and  the  father  of  it."  Does  it  not  seem  logical 
to  you  to  believe  that  the  father  of  a  lie  is  a  lie, 
and  externalizes  himself  in  liars  carnal  mortals? 

You  perhaps  noticed  that  in  the  last  chapter  I 
omitted  to  end  with  any  scriptural  quotations. 
It  was  an  accident — but  when  I  came  to  consider 
the  matter  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  accident  was 
what  you  call  providential,  for  all  of  the  scripture 
on  this  subject  can  be  used  interchangeably  as 
applying  to  both  matter  and  evil.  Therefore,  I 
end  this  chapter  as  before,  with  quotations  from 


1 66  Christian  Science 

the  Bible.  It  is  as  I  have  previously  said  not  mine 
to  interpret  these  for  you  (though  in  some  cases 
I  have  added  my  own  translation).  ''Knock  and 
it  shall  be  opened  unto  you,  seek  and  ye  shall  find. 
For  unto  him  that  knocketh  it  shall  be  opened  and 
he  that  seeketh,  findeth."  Read  these  quotations 
in  the  light  of  what  I  have  said.  Then  shut  your 
eyes  and  give  them  meditation  with  the  spiritual 
sense  with  a  desire  to  know  the  truths  and  see  what  the 
result  will  be. 

Let  me  say  further,  that  anyone  who  will  spend 
half  an  hour  each  day  with  closed  eyes  in  quiet 
thinking  of  these  things  and  of  the  words  of  the 
Bible  will  get  benefit  from  it  which  will  help  him 
not  only  in  spiritual  growth  but  in  the  right  living 
of  his  life  which  is  the  same  thing.  Further  I  say 
again  try  this  way  if  you  have  not,  for  only  by 
demonstration  can  you  understand  and  by  keeping 
in  mind  the  non-existence  of  matter  and  of  evil 
to  the  glory  of  God,  hard  though  these  things  may 
be  for  you  to  see,  you  can  accomplish  things  which 
can  be  accomplished  in  no  other  way,  both  in 
health  and  in  living  a  useful  and  happy  life. 

Note  :  The  quotations  at  the  end  of  Chapter  VI.  will  be  found 
to  best  express  the  basis  for  the  beliefs  in  this  book.  It  is  not 
thought  wise  to  give  many  here  since  the  full  argument  is  not 
yet  developed.  The  reader  is  requested  to  refer  to  paragraph  2 
on  page  40  here  and  to  read  it  before  reading  the  scripture 
quotations  now  submitted.  It  should  also  be  said  here  that  the 
Bible  quotations  appended  to  the  chapters  of  this  book  do  not  all 
logically  pertain  to  the  subject-matter  of  the  chapters  to  which 
they  are  attached.     Also  since  many  verses  contain  two  thoughts 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  167 

they  do  not  exclusively  pertain  to  the  headings  under  which  they 
appear.  The  purpose  is  only  partly  contained  in  a  desire  to 
substantiate  opinions.  It  goes  further  than  that;  the  desire 
being  to  stimulate  the  reader's  interest  in  studying  Bible  verses  in 
the  light  of  new  beliefs.  Hence  some  quotations  do  not  pertain 
directly  to  the  subject-matter  and  some  have  been  repeated  in 
order  to  bring  them  in  proximity  to  others,  or  in  order  to  amplify 
interpretations. 

NON-EXISTENCE  OF  EVIL  OR  MATTER. 

Note:  Only  a  few  quotations  are  given  here.  For  a  further 
interpretation  of  these  matters  from  Bible  texts  see  end  of 
Chapter  VI. 

Gen.  1:31.  And  God  saw  everything  that  he  had 
made,  and,  behold,  it  was  very  good. 

John  1:3.  All  things  were  made  by  him,  and 
without  him  was  not  any  thing  made  that  was  made. 

[Can  a  good  tree  bring  forth  evil  fruit  ?] 

Ecc.  3:  14,  15.  I  know  that,  whatsoever  God 
doeth,  it  shall  be  forever:  Nothing  can  be  put  to  it, 
nor  anything  taken  from  it.  God  doeth  it,  that  men 
should  fear  before  him. 

That  which  hath  been  is  now;  and  that  which  is  to 
be  hath  already  been ;  and  God  requireth  that  which  is 
past.  [Yet  God  made  All  and  All  he  made  was  good, 
as  stated  in  the  first  two  quotations  on  this   page.] 

[Down  to  this  point,  do  you  not  think  that  the 
quotations  strongly  indicate  the  non-reality  of  evil? 
Study  them.] 

Deut.  32:3,  4.  He  is  the  Rock,  his  work  is  per- 
fect; for  all  his  ways  are  judgment:  a  God  of  truth 
and  without  iniquity,  just  and  right  is  he. 

[Can  a  good  tree  bring  forth  evil  fruit  ?] 

Psalm  36:9.  For  with  thee  is  the  fountain  of  life; 
in  thy  light  shall  we  see  light. 


1 68  Christian  Science 

[Can^a  good  tree  bring  forth  evil  fruit?] 

Psalm  45:  6.  Thy  throne,  0  God,  is  for  ever  and 
ever :  the  scepter  of  thy  kingdom  is  a  right  scepter. 

II.  Timothy  i :  7.  For  God  hath  not  given  us  the 
spirit  of  fear;  but  of  power,  and  of  love,  and  of  a 
sound  mind. 

Psalm  146:  6.  Which  made  heaven,  and  earth,  the 
sea,  and  all  that  therein  is:  which  keepeth  truth  forever. 

[Can  a  good  tree  bring  forth  evil  fruit?] 

I  know  that  whatsoever  God  doeth,  it  shall  be 
forever,  nothing  can  be  put  to  it,  nor  anything  taken 
from  it.  And  God  doeth  it,  that  men  should  fear 
before  him. 

That  which  hath  been  is  now;  and  that  which  is  to 
be  hath  already  been;  and  God  requireth  that  which 
is  past. 

Colossians  1:16,  17.  For  by  him  were  all  things 
created,  that  are  in  heaven,  and  that  are  in  earth, 
visible  [not  illusions]  [in  reality]  and  invisible,  whether 
they  be  thrones,  or  dominions,  or  principalities,  or 
powers;  all  things  were  created  by  him  and  for  him. 
And  he  is  before  all  things,  and  by  him  all  things 
consist.  [But  he  made  nothing  evil,  all  good.  "God 
saw  everything  that  he  had  made  and  behold  it  was 
very  good."] 

Proverbs  3:19.  The  Lord  by  wisdom  hath  founded 
the  earth;  hy  understanding  hath  he  established  the 
heavens.     [Not  by  matter,  but  by  ideas.] 

Gen.  1:4,  5.  And  every  plant  of  the  field  before  it 
was  iji  the  earth  [ideas]  and  every  herb  of  the  field  be- 
fore it  grew ;  in  the  day  that  the  Lord  God  made  the 
earth  and  the  heavens. 

James  3:11,  12.  Doth  a  fountain  send  forth  at  the 
same  place  sweet  water  and  bitter  ?     Can  the  fig  tree, 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  169 

my  brethren,  bear  olive  berries?  either  a  vine,  figs?  so 
can  no  fountain  yield  salt  water  and  fresh. 

Psalm  139:7-12.  Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy 
spirit  ?  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence  ?  If  I 
ascend  up  into  heaven,  thou  art  there:  if  I  make  my 
bed  in  hell,  behold,  thou  art  there.  If  I  take  the  wings 
of  the  morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  sea;  even  there  shall  thy  hand  lead  me,  and  thy 
right  hand  shall  hold  me.  If  I  say,  Surely  the  darkness 
[my  sense  of  matter]  shall  cover  me;  even  the  night 
shall  be  light  about  me.  Yea,  the  darkness  [matter, 
untruth]  and  the  light  [spirit,  truth],  are  both  alike  to 
thee.  [If  both  are  alike  one  cannot  exist.  Toward 
which  do  you  prefer  to  exercise  your  faith?] 

James  1:17.  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect 
gift  is  from  above,  and  cometh  down  from  the  Father 
of  lights,  with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither 
shadow  of  turning. 

[How  about  evil?  The  answer  is:  **  For  all  that  is 
in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the  flesh  and  the  lust  of  the  eye 
and  the  pride  of  life  is  not  of  the  Father,  but  is  of  the 
world."     I.  John  2: 16.] 

I.  John  4: 7,  8.  Beloved,  let  us  love  one  another: 
for  love  is  of  God :  and  everyone  that  loveth  is  born  of 
God,  and  knoweth  God.  He  that  loveth  not  knoweth 
not  God ;  for  God  is  love. 

[Can  a  good  tree  bring  forth  evil  fruit?] 

Job  37;  23.  Touching  the  Almighty,  we  cannot  find 
him  out:  he  is  excellent  in  power,  and  in  judgment, 
and  in  plenty  of  justice:  he  will  not  afflict.  [Is  the 
war  an  affliction  ?   •  Is  it  from  God  ?] 

Psalm  62 : 1 1 .  God  hath  spoken  once ;  twice  have 
I  heard  this ;  That  power  belongeth  unto  God. 


I70  Christian  Science 

SPIRITUAL    MAN. 

Gen.  1 :  26.  And  God  said,  Let  us  make  man  in 
our  image,  after  our  likeness:  and  let  them  have  do- 
minion over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl  of 
the  air,  and  over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the  earth,  and 
over  every  creeping  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the  earth. 

[Compare  with  Gen.  5:3:  "And  Adam  .  .  .  begat 
a  son  in  his  own  likeness  after  his  image,"] 

Acts  17:29.  Forasmuch  then  as  we  are  the  off- 
spring of  God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  God- 
head is  like  unto  gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by 
art  and  man's  device  ["material"  bodies]. 

Psalms  27:1-5.  The  Lord  is  my  light,  and  my 
salvation ;  whom  shall  I  fear  ?  The  Lord  is  the  strength 
of  my  life;  of  whom  shall  I  be  afraid?  When  the 
wicked,  even  mine  enemies  and  my  foes  [my  own  false 
conceptions],  came  upon  me  to  eat  up  my  flesh,  they 
stumbled  and  fell. 

Though  an  host  should  encamp  against  me,  my 
heart  shall  not  fear;  though  war  should  rise  against 
me,  in  this  will  I  be  confident. 

One  thing  have  I  desired  of  the  Lord,  that  will  I 
seek  after;  that  I  may  dwell  in  the  house  [the  con- 
sciousness] of  the  Lord  all  the  days  of  my  life,  to  be- 
hold the  beauty  of  the  Lord,  and  to  enquire  in  the 
temple  [the  true  body  of  God's  idea]. 

For  in  the  time  of  trouble  he  shall  hide  me  in  his 
pavilion,  in  the  secret  of  his  tabernacle  shall  he  hide 
me;  he  shall  set  me  up  upon  a  rock. 

Psalm  91:5,  7.  Thou  shalt  not  be  afraid  for  the 
terror  by  night ;  nor  for  the  arrow  that  flieth  by  day ; 
nor  for  the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  darkness;  nor 
for  the  destruction  that  wasteth  at  noonday. 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  171 

A  thousand  shall  fall  at  thy  side,  and  ten  thousand 
at  thy  right  hand;  but  it  shall  not  come  nigh  thee. 
[If  you  are  abiding  in  Christ,  i.e.,  a  consciousness  of 
the  mind  which  was  in  Christ ;  subject  to  the  spiritual 
law.] 

Isaiah  12:2.  Behold,  God  is  my  salvation;  I  will 
trust,  and  not  be  afraid;  for  the  Lord  Jehovah  is  my 
strength  and  my  song;  he  also  is  become  my  salvation. 

Romans  i :  20.  For  the  invisible  things  [to  the 
senses]  of  him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are 
clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are 
made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead.  [Under- 
neath the  false  conception  is  the  truth.  "Underneath 
are  the  everlasting  arms."] 

James  i :  18.  Of  his  own  will  begat  he  us  with 
the  word  of  truth,  that  we  should  be  a  kind  of  first- 
fruits  of  his  creatures. 

Romans  8:28.  And  we  know  that  all  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God  [the  higher 
minds  of  men — for  the  **  carnal  mind  is  enmity  to 
God"],  to  them  who  are  the  called  according  to  his 
purpose. 

MORTAL  MAN  AND  IDOLATRY. 

Gen.  5:3.  And  Adam  begat  a  son  in  his  own  like- 
ness after  his  image. 

Psalm  78:  17,  22.  And  they  sinned  yet  more 
against  him  by  provoking  the  most  High  in  the  wilder- 
ness. And  they  tempted  God  in  their  heart  by  asking 
meat  [material  instead  of  spiritual;  "man  shall  not 
live  by  bread  alone"]  for  their  lust.  ["No  man  is 
tempted  of  God;  he  is  led  away  of  his  own  lust  and 
deceived."]     Yea,  they  spake  against  God;  they  said, 


172  Christian  Science 

Can  God  furnish  a  table  in  the  wilderness?  Behold, 
he  smote  the  rock,  that  the  waters  gushed  out,  and 
the  streams  overflowed;  can  he  give  bread  also?  Can 
he  provide  flesh  for  his  people?  Therefore  the  Lord 
heard  this,  and  was  wroth :  because  they  believed  not 
in  God,  and  trusted  not  in  his  salvation. 

Romans  13: 1 1.  And  that,  knowing  the  time,  that 
now  it  is  high  time  to  awake  out  of  sleep  [conscious- 
ness of  evil]:  for  now  is  our  salvation  nearer  than 
when  we  believed. 

Exodus  34: 12,  14.  Take  heed  to  thyself,  lest  thou 
make  a  covenant  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  land, 
whither  thou  goest  [with  the  carnal  mind],  lest  it  be 
for  a  snare  in  the  midst  of  thee : 

But  ye  shall  destroy  their  altars  [carnal  law],  break 
their  images,  and  cut  down  their  groves; 

For  thou  shalt  worship  no  other  god :  for  the  Lord, 
whose  name  is  Jealous,  is  a  jealous  God.  [In  the  old 
Testament,  these  allusions  to  a  God  who  has  human 
qualities  have  crept  in  in  many  places,  and  seem  to  me 
to  be  the  result  of  the  conception  of  Him  which  was 
then  prevalent.  They  certainly  conflict  with  other 
passages  in  which  a  different  idea  of  Him  is  given.] 

Deut.  4:15.  Take  ye  therefore  good  heed  unto 
yourselves ;  for  ye  saw  no  manner  of  similitude  on  the 
day  that  the  Lord  spake  unto  you  in  Horeb  out  of  the 
midst  of  the  fire  [body  =  similitude]. 

Deut.  12 :  29,  30.  When  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  cut 
off  the  nations  from  before  thee,  whither  thou  goest 
to  possess  them,  and  thou  succeedest  them,  and  dwell- 
est  in  their  land; 

Take  heed  to  thyself  that  thou  be  not  snared  by 
following  them,  after  that  they  be  destroyed  from 
before  thee ;  and  that  thou  enquire  not  after  their  gods, 


Does  Evil  Have  Reality?  173 

saying,  How  did  these  nations  serve  their  gods?  even 
so  will  I  do  likewise. 

Job  31 :  26-28.  If  I  beheld  the  sun  when  it  shined, 
or  the  moon  walking  in  brightness ;  and  my  heart  hath 
been  secretly  enticed,  or  my  mouth  hath  kissed  my 
hand: 

This  also  were  an  iniquity  to  be  punished  by  the 
judge :  for  I  should  have  denied  the  God  that  is  above 
[idolatry,  worship  of  matter]. 

Psalm  44 :  20-2 1 .  If  we  have  forgotten  the  name 
of  our  God,  or  stretched  out  our  hands  to  a  strange 
god  [mortal  sense] ;  Shall  not  God  search  this  out  ?  for 
he  knoweth  the  secrets  of  the  heart. 

Isaiah  2:17.  And  the  loftiness  of  man  shall  be 
bowed  down,  and  the  haughtiness  of  men  shall  be 
made  low ;  and  the  Lord  alone  shall  be  exalted  in  that 
day. 

Matthew  4:  10.  It  is  written,  Thou  shalt  wor- 
ship the  Lord  thy  God,  and  him  only  shalt  thou  serve. 
[Not  carnal  law,  matter,  body,  which  is  enmity  to  God — 
or  the  body.] 

II.  Cor.  3:  15.  But  even  unto  this  day,  when 
Moses  is  read,  the  vail  [a  sense  of  matter  so  that  they 
do  not  perceive  the  spiritual  meaning  of  the  Scripture] 
is  upon  their  heart. 

Proverbs  9: 10.  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  begin- 
ning of  wisdom.  [For  nothing  else  has  power  that 
you  need  fear.] 


CHAPTER  VI. 

CHRIST  JESUS  AND  THE  MEANING  OF  LIFE. 

To  all  who  believe  that  the  Bible  contains  the 
truth  (and  this  does  not  mean  that  there  are  no 
mistakes  in  it,  or  that  no  errors  of  translation  have 
crept  in)  Christ  is  the  central  figure  of  the  ages. 
Different  individuals  who  profess  Christianity 
view  him  in  different  ways,  but  to  each  individual, 
who  is  a  true  Christian,  he  is  the  way  to  salvation. 
The  differences  of  opinion  as  to  how  this  salvation 
comes  about  arise  not  because  of  a  dispute  as  to 
the  fact  that  it  is  through  the  Christ  spirit  that  all 
men  are  saved,  but  because  of  differences  of  view  as 
to  how  the  process  is  accomplished.  It  seems  to  me 
that  these  differences  are  just  as  unnecessary  in  the 
churches,  as  we  have  seen  the  differences  between 
the  Christian  Scientist  and  the  chemist  to  be. 

Let  me  see  if  I  can  make  you  understand  what  I 
mean,  and  remember  again  I  am  not  making 
dogmatic  statements,  only  giving  you  the  pro- 
cesses through  which  one  man  has  come,  with  the 
hope  that  they  will  help  some  other  man  on  his 
journey.  I  have  no  criticism  for  any  man's 
sincere  beliefs.    If  he  be  wrong,  God  will  lead  him, 

174 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life         175 

if  I  be  wrong,  He  will  lead  me  also  to  final  under- 
standing of  Truth. 

Had  you  ever  considered  that  there  is  a  strange 
unanimity  in  various  quarters  concerning  the  fact 
that  there  seem  to  be  two  minds  in  each  man  ?  If 
you  have  not,  read  your  Bible  carefully  again  with 
this  thought  in  mind,  and  see  if  you  do  not  reach 
the  conclusion  that  it  teaches  consciousness  of 
either  two  distinct  minds  or  two  aspects  of  the 
same  mind.  I  am  inclined  to  the  first  beHef  for  the 
Bible  says,  "the  carnal  mind  is  enmity  against 
God,"  and  then  again  it  says,  *'the  corruptible 
cannot  inherit  incorruption, "  which  sounds  to  me 
like  a  hint  to  those  that  have  ears  that  the  same 
mind  cannot  contain  both  aspects.  True  mind 
is  not  contained,  and  is  One,  therefore  I  say 
** consciousness  of  two  minds."  Anyway,  the 
Bible  certainly  speaks  of  the  "carnal  mind"  and 
the  "Mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus,"  and  ad- 
monishes you  to  "let  that  mind  be  in  you,"  i.e., 
consciousness  that  there  is  but  one  mind  without 
separation  from  God — not  many  minds.  Then 
again,  modern  psychologists  have  discovered  that 
man  has  two  minds,  the  objective,  which  reasons 
deductively,  {i.e.,  from  external  facts — material 
facts),  and  the  subjective  mind,  which  knows 
nothing  of  deductive  reasoning  {i.e.,  corruption 
cannot  inherit  incorruption"),  and  it  seems  to  me 
that  they  might  have  well  named  them  so-called 
carnal  mind  and  Mind  of  Christ  just  as  the  Bible 
does.    Again  comes  Mrs.  Eddy  with  the  "mortal 


176  Christian  Science 

mind"  which  seems  to  perceive  material  things, 
and  the  "spiritual  mind  "  which  does  not,  and  is  the 
Christ  Mind  the  Manifestation  of  the  One  Mind. 
A  strange  similarity  in  the  conclusions  is  there  not  ? 
This  is  to  some  extent  repetition,  but  for  a  purpose. 

Further,  you  will  see,  if  you  read  your  Bible 
carefully  again,  that  there  is  a  "Law  of  sin  and 
death"  which  is  the  law  of  the  carnal  mind — or 
mortal  mind,  and  a  ' '  Law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in 
Christ  Jesus  "which  "sets  you  free"  from  the  "Law 
of  sin  and  death."  Also  I  am  told,  and  have  seen 
it  stated  in  a  competent  psychological  work,  that 
the  psychologists  in  common  with  Mrs.  Eddy  and 
the  Bible  have  at  least  speculated  that  there  is 
something  within  man  which  is  a  "Law  unto 
itself"  apart  from  objective  things. 

I  suggest,  for  your  careful  study,  the  thought 
that  "the  mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus,"  the 
subjective  mind,  is  possibly  that  mind  which 
right  now  is  unconscious  of  separation  from  God  the 
One  Real  Mind,  and  unconscious  of  the  sense  of 
matter  which  makes  the  sense  of  separation.  A 
mind  which  is  the  real  "you"  (not  the  dreamer, 
untrue  carnal  mind)  and  at  the  same  time  One 
with  universal  consciousness.  Also  that  possibly 
if  you  could  bring  that  mind  more  actively  into 
consciousness  {i.e.,  know  God,  whom  to  know  is 
eternal  life,  and  know  Him  face  to  face  not  through 
a  glass  darkly)  you  would  to-day  (without  the 
process  called  "death")  consciously  have  eternal 
life,  and  be  able  to  live  consciously  the  life  of  the 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        177 

Christ,  the  real  ideal  man  which  is  not  cognizant 
of  the  false  law  made  by  the  carnal  man  by  his 
false  opinions  mentally  enforced.  ''He  that  be- 
lieveth  on  me  hath  eternal  life"  (Bible).  In  this 
connection  see  again  page  64  paragraph  3. 

With  this  as  a  basis,  suppose  we  go  back  and 
speculate  a  little  ourselves,  using  the  Bible  as  a 
basis.  Is  it  not  possible  that  when  the  Bible  tells 
of  the  second  creation,  referred  to  elsewhere,  of  man 
(yes,  there  are  two  accounts  of  creation  in  Genesis; 
read  it  and  see),  it  is  speaking  of  the  creation  by 
the  Adam  Man,  in  whom  all  die  (Bible) ,  of  a  false 
sense  of  matter?  ''Adam  begat  a  son  in  his  own 
image"  (Bible).  Is  it  not  suggestive  that  the 
result  of  eating  of  the  apple  {i.e.,  the  taste  of  mate- 
rial things)  was  that  Adam  and  Eve  became  con- 
scious of  a  sense  of  material  bodies  which  they 
evidently  had  no  sense  of  before?  Hence  they  had 
not  known  that  they  were  naked.  Has  it  ever 
come  home  to  you,  further,  that  in  the  story  of  Cain 
and  Abel,  there  is  a  possible  allegory  of  the  man 
(material  mind)  who  brought  an  unacceptable  gift 
of  material  things  to  God,  and  being  angered 
because  they  were  not  acceptable,  and  believing 
in  material  things,  killed  his  brother? — i.e.,  lost  for 
a  time  his  own  spiritual  perception  of  his  brother 
(spiritual  mind) ,  though  of  course  there  is  no  final 
killing  of  spiritual  sense  or  spiritual  man.  And 
had  it  occurred  to  you  that  there  is  a  striking 
similarity  between  the  curse  that  was  pronounced 
on  Cain  (material  mind)  {i.e.,  that  he  should  live 


178  Christian  Science 

in  the  perception  and  under  the  labor  of  material 
things)  and  that  passage  in  the  New  Testament 
where  it  says  "and  this  is  the  condemnation,  that 
light  is  come  into  the  world,  and  men  loved 
darkness  [i.e.,  the  sense  of  matter,  lack  of  true 
consciousness]  rather  than  light"?  Remember 
also  that  a  curse  is  pronounced  on  ''whosoever 
killeth  Cain"  (material  mind)  instead  of  raising  it 
through  Love  to  the  perception  of  Truth.  Read 
your  Bible  carefully  again  and  see  if  you  can- 
not find  in  the  Book  of  Job  the  allegory  of  the 
descent  of  a  man's  consciousness  (the  material 
dream)  into  a  perception  of  material  things  and 
its  ascent  again  into  knowledge  of  that  ''truth 
which  shall  make  you  free."  See  if  the  story  of 
Jonah  and  the  whale  is  not  suggestive  of  the  same 
thing  to  you,  and  try  if  you  cannot  perceive  in  the 
story  of  the  wanderings  of  the  Children  of  Israel, 
the  allegory  of  many  things  that  happen  in  the  life 
of  every  man.  May  it  not  be  true  that  the  Bible, 
as  well  as  common  sense,  teaches  that  the  percep- 
tion of  "matter"  in  false  consciousness  is  the  one 
sin  from  which  others  spring?  May  this  not  be 
what  the  Bible  conveys  by  the  use  of  the  word 
"Idolatry" — the  worship  of  something  not  God? 

I  am  not  attacking  the  truth  of  the  story  itself. 
Doubtless,  much  of  it  is  a  literal  possibility  and  is 
historically  true.  I  think,  and  I  believe  that  you 
will  agree  with  me,  that  Adam  and  Eve  simply 
typify  men  and  women  and  that  what  is  known  as 
the  "fall  of  Adam  "  did  not  take  place  in  a  moment 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        179 

or  indeed  in  many  years,  but  what  I  am  trying  to 
point  out  is  that  while  the  history  may  be  true  of 
beliefs  there  is  under  the  stories  in  the  Bible  a 
spiritual  truth  for  those  who  can  see  it,  that  reaches 
to  the  foundations  of  every  man's  being  and  ex- 
plains him  to  himself  as  nothing  else  can.  Further- 
more, that  much  of  the  explanation  is  consistent 
with  the  findings  of  modern  science  and  more 
consistent  with  Christian  Science.^ 

True  Man  is  spiritual  and  exists  as  God's  idea, 
but  the  Myth  or  Adam  Man  through  some  fault 
of  his  own,  typified  in  the  Bible  by  eating  the 
apple  (material  object),  became  equipped  with  the 
false  consciousness  non-existent  of  carnal  mind,  a 
dream  which  seemed  to  know  ''material"  things. 
These  ''material"  things  are  the  sources  of  all  evil 
according  to  the  Bible,  Mrs.  Eddy,  and  common 
sense.  He  commenced  to  construct  with  that 
carnal  mind  the  "Law  of  sin  and  death"  {i.e.^ 
absence  of  truth) ,  which  is  that  law  which  we  know 
with  our  objective,  carnal,  mortal  minds.  ^  Why 
God,  being  Good  and  Altogether  Good,  should 
have  allowed  such  a  thing  to  happen,  I  do  not 
know,  but  I  do  know,  in  spite  of  the  false  testimony 
of  that  mind  which  seems  to  perceive  evil,  that  He 
is  All,  and  is  Altogether  Good,  that  therefore  evil 
cannot  have  reality,  and  where  necessary,  in  order 

^  See  previous  remarks  about  Mr.  Holt  and  his  book. 

=»  Read  for  yourself  any  of  the  stories  of  battle  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament and  see  if  you  cannot  by  searching  find  an  underlying 
meaning  behind  the  mere  relation  of  facts. 


i8o  CHristian  Science 

to  preserve  knowledge  of  Him,  we  should  deny  the 
testimony  of  the  senses. 

The  "Law  of  sin  and  death"  is  the  law  which 
comprises  all  of  man's  false  wisdom  which  is 
"foolishness  with  God,"  and  includes  all  that 
appears  to  be  of  evil  (germs,  death,  etc.,). 

"But  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his 
only  begotten  son  [the  spirit  of  Christ  in  each  man's 
heart — the  subjective  mind]  that  whosoever  be- 
lieveth  in  him  [the  divine  within  himself  and  its 
law  which  is  the  law  of  God]  should  not  perish  but 
have  everlasting  life"  (Bible),  now  in  conscious- 
ness.^ The  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ 
Jesus  HATH  set  me  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and 
death. 

If  there  is  anything  in  the  Bible  which  is  plain 
to  me,  it  is  the  fact  that  it  speaks  of  life  and  its 
conditions  as  states  of  consciousness.  Jesus  says 
"the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  you,"  i.e.,  a 
state  of  consciousness  (not  a  place),  obtainable 
now,  otherwise  how  could  Jesus  have  truthfully 
admonished,  "Be  ye  therefore  perfect,"  "he  that 
believeth  in  me  hath  eternal  life"?  But  there 
is  another  thing  that  seems  plain  to  me  in  the 
Bible  and  that  is  that  the  word  "believe"  as 
used  therein  has  been  vitally  misconstrued.  A 
hint  of  what  seems  to  me  the  true  meaning  is 
contained  in  the  statement  of  Jesus  "if  ye  abide 
in  me  and  my  words  abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask 
what  ye  will  and  it  shall  be  done  unto  you. "     In 

'  See  paragraph  3,  page  64. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        i8i 

other  words,  belief  does  not  mean  just  intellectual 
assent  but  could  better  be  translated  "be-living" 
your  life  to-day  with  full  consciousness  centered  in 
the  mind  which  is  in  Christ  and  with  that  mind 
alone,  leaving  behind  you  all  perception  of  matter 
(a  false  sense  of  God  and  man)  which  is  the  untruth 
of  the  carnal  mind  and  the  sum  of  evil,  neither  of 
which  exist  in  God's  plan.  In  this  sense  is  it  not 
strictly  true  that  Whosoever  ^^ he-living'^  in  him  {i.e.j 
that  consciousness  of  the  mind  of  Christ  which  is 
himself)  shall  not  perish  {i.e.,  be  temporarily  lost  to 
consciousness  of  Spirit  like  Cain  in  the  absorption 
of  material  perceptions)  hut  have,  to-day,  everlast- 
ing life  (consciousness  of  continuous  existence)  ? 
And  if  you  did  "abide  in  him"  {i.e.,  live  only  with 
the  spiritual  mind)  in  this  sense,  could  you  ask 
anything  wrong  and  is  there  anything  you  could 
not  do? — apparently  the  Bible  teaches  not:  ''by 
faith  you  can  remove  mountains."  You  would 
have  then  no  consciousness  of  them  as  they  now 
seem  to  you. 

I  wish  to  put  myself  on  record  as  knowing  with 
absolute  conviction  for  myself,  that  when  Jesus 
says,  "he  that  believeth  [i.e.,  ''he-living,''  with  the 
mind  of  Christ  and  that  mind  only]  on  me,  the 
things  that  I  do  shall  he  do  also,"  he  means 
just  precisely  what  he  says  as  he  did  in  all  that  he 
said  and  demonstrated,  for  what  he  means  to  me, 
in  that  sentence,  is  that  there  is  another  mind 
which  mind  is  not  the  mind  which  I  know  with  my 
*' physical"  senses,  and  he  also  means  that  there  is 


1 82  Christian  Science 

another  law  which  is  not  the  law  which  I  know 
with  my  ''physical"  senses,  hut  which  is  the  law 
of  God  and  not  the  so-called  law  of  mortal  man, 
and  he  means  that  if  I  could  live  with  that  mind 
alone,  I  would  become  subject  to  its  law  alone  and 
could  do  every  one  of  the  things  which  he  tells  me 
I  can,  for  material  things  and  their  laws  to  me 
would  not  exist  because  my  consciousness  would 
be  above  them,  and  I  could,  as  he  did,  where  faith 
allowed,  raise  the  consciousness  of  others  to  the 
same  plane  and  thus  overcome  the  laws  of  carnal 
mind.  I  would  be  living  in  true  not  in  a  false 
mentality  (psychic  influences)  in  harmony  with 
true  law  and  not  receiving  "material"  impacts 
now  perceived  because  of  my  own  inharmonious 
condition. 

But  I  know  further  that  Jesus  has  said  that  "it 
is  easier  for  a  camel  to  pass  through  the  eye  of  a 
needle  than  for  a  rich  man  [i.e.,  a  man  rich  in  the 
perception  of  material  things,  loving  darkness 
rather  than  the  light]  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  [i.e.,  that  state  of  consciousness  which  I 
have  just  been  describing]."  However,  I  know 
that  it  is  possible  for  us  to  get  a  consciousness  of 
truth  to-day,  because  Jesus  says  it  is,  and  I  do  not 
(bearing  in  mind  that  my  life  is  continuous  from 
its  source,  eternal  Life,  God)  believe  that  I  have 
had  a  long  time  to  tangle  up  my  fish  line  but  that 
I  can  begin  at  once  to  rise  gradually  into  that 
consciousness  which  is  my  birthright,  sold  for  a 
mess  of  pottage   (material  perception).     I  must 


Christ  and^Meaning  of  Life        183 

exercise,  for  a  time,  that  faith  which  is  the  sub- 
stance of  things  hoped  for  (after  I  have  used  my 
reason  to  its  hmit),  in  the  direction  of  spiritual 
things.  I  must  lay  up  for  myself  treasures  in 
heaven  {i.e.,  that  consciousness  which  is  the 
kingdom  of  heaven)  for  where  my  treasure  is  (my 
most  vital  consciousness  and  mind)  there  will  my 
heart  be  also.  Bear  in  mind  Jesus  says  that  by 
some  process  of  change  in  consciousness  not 
known  to  me  the  beginning  of  transformation  is 
possible  now. 

Now  I  must  interrupt  this  train  of  thought  here, 
in  order  to  say  a  few  things  to  those  people  who  are 
fearing  that  this  idea  of  Christ  if  adopted  would 
destroy  their  old  faith  in  Jesus.  What  I  wish  to 
say  is  this, — by  all  means,  if  you  desire,  go  on 
believing  just  as  you  have.  I  cannot  see  that 
there  is  anything  in  what  I  have  said  which  con- 
tradicts any  spiritual  understanding  of  Jesus. 
What  now  seems  more  important  to  me  however 
is  that  through  Jesus  first  and  primarily,  and  also 
secondarily  through  many  inspired  men  and 
women,  one  of  the  most  spiritual  among  whom  is 
Mary  Baker  Eddy,  every  man  can  know  of  the 
**Mind  which  was  in  Christ,"  which  is  now  at 
least  the  mind  which  exists  in  every  man,  the 
spiritual,  subjective  mind  which  God  gave  to  man 
because  He  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  a 
consciousness  and  possible  knowledge  of  that 
only  begotten  son  to  reside  in  each  man's  heart, 
that  whosoever   believeth  in  him   (lives  in   the 


184  Christian  Science 

spiritual  mind  alone)  should  not  perish  but  have 
everiasting  life  in  consciousness  now.  And  this  is 
the  important  thing  to  me.  What  Jesus  did  to,  and 
with,  his  bodily  presence  and  what  it  meant  is  im- 
portant, but  not  so  important  as  what  he  has  accom- 
plished in  the  spiritual  consciousness  of  the  worid 
(spiritual  meaning  of  the  Bible).  So  I  say  to  my 
good  friends  who  fear  that  they  may  offend  the 
conception  of  Christ  around  which  their  lives  have 
been  built,  ''I  would  not  change  your  beHefs,  for 
you  and  I  will  finally  find  our  true  selves  and  our 
lives  hid  with  Christ  in  God.  You  confine  the 
words  'only  begotten  son'  to  one  bodily  presence, 
but  give  its  effects  to  all  men  through  the  love  of 
Christ  and  the  Christ  life,  while  I  construe  the 
words  as  meaning  the  direct  birth  into  man's 
consciousness,  of  the  Christ  Mind,  ^  a  knowledge  of 
which  comes  through  Christ  Jesus.  And  where 
then  in  the  results  is  the  difference  between  us? 
And  is  it  not  the  results  that  count?*' 

Again  I  cannot  believe  myself  that  mankind 
is  saved  by  some  mysterious  process  proceeding 
from  the  death  of  Jesus.  To  me  his  death  typifies 
the  crucification  {i.e.,  reduction  to  a  sense  of 
nothingness  in  consciousness)  of  the  carnal  mind 
(the  body)  and  the  carnal  so-called  law.  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  story  of  his  temptation  in  the 
wilderness  simply  indicates  that  in  order  that  he 
might  be  "tempted  like  as  we  are  "  he  was  equipped 

*  And  by  this  I  do  not  mean  separate  contained  mind ;  see  again 
page  64,  paragraph  3. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        185 

with  the  consciousness  of  carnal  mind;  that  the 
tempter  was  simply  and  only  that  false  conscious- 
ness and  the  struggle  one  between  his  spiritual 
sense  (the  mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus)  and 
his  carnal,  objective  so-called  mind,  responding 
to  false  sense  (inertia)  from  human  lack  of  knowl- 
edge. How  else  account  for  that  place  in  the  Bible 
where  it  says,  ''When  a  man  is  tempted  he  is  led 
away  of  his  own  lust  and  deceived,"  and  for  the 
other  place  previously  referred  to  where  the  devil 
is  spoken  of  as  a  lie? 

But  what  of  those  people  who  do  believe  that 
in  some  mysterious  manner  Jesus'  death  saved 
them  ?  What  do  they  mean  in  sober  fact  ?  They 
certainly  recognize  that  the  Bible  says  that  you 
shall  be  judged  by  your  thoughts,  and  under 
that  term  I  include  actiojts  [(i.e.,  your  progress 
toward  perfection)  for  what  otherwise  does  Jesus 
mean  when  he  says  that  "whosoever  looketh  on 
a  woman  to  lust  after  her  hath  committed  adultery 
with  her  already 'in  his  heart"?  Is  not  the  mys- 
terious something  simply  a  knowledge  of  the  life 
of  Jesus  and  a  love  for  him  and  the  Christ  which 
enables  one  to  live  in  the  mind  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  and  in  that  mmd  alone  ?  The  reflection  of 
the  One  Mind — both  individual  and  universal 
consciousness. 

Now,  truly,  isn't  that  just  exactly  what  the 
belief  is  when  it  comes  to  analysis,  and  where  then 
is  the  difference  in  result  between  my  way  of 
stating  the  belief  and  theirs?     They  believe  that 


1 86  Christian  Science 

Jesus  died  and  that  in  some  mysterious  way 
thereby  he  saved  us,  and  what  they  mean  is, 
that  a  knowledge  and  love  of  his  life  (spiritual  in- 
fluences being  all  of  life)  saves  us,  by  enabling  us  to 
live  rightly  and  teaching  us  how,  and  this  does  not 
mean  a  long  series  of  lifetimes  necessarily,  for  I 
am  convinced  that  the  Bible  teaches  that  through 
some  process  unknown  as  yet  consciousness  can 
be  otherwise  raised  than  through  experience. 
Perchance  this  is  the  ''mysterious"  process,  and 
frankly  I  do  not  know  what  it  is,  except  that  I  do 
know  that  faith  in  the  Christ  mind  is  the  way  to 
it,  and  I  know  further  that  this  way  of  stating 
belief  makes  it  easier  to  understand. 

I  strongly  suspect  that  the  second  coming  of 
Christ  Jesus,  while  it  may  mean  his  spiritual 
bodily  presence,  will  also  mean  the  awakening  of 
men  to  full  consciousness  that  they  are  divine  in 
truth  in  the  One  Mind.  I  believe  that  Jesus  died 
and  lived  to  typify  that  which  every  man  must 
sooner  or  later  meet  and  overcome  within  himself, 
and  that  thereby  he  saved  us.  Same  result;  why 
quarrel  about  a  technicality? 

And  right  here  let  me  quote  something  that  may 
be  brought  to  my  attention  later.  "The  chastise- 
ment of  our  sins  was  upon  him  and  by  his  stripes 
we  are  healed."  Then  let  me  put  my  interpreta- 
tion upon  it.  ''The  knowledge  of  suffering 
brought  by  the  kind  of  sin  we  live  under  [a  sense 
of  matter]  was  upon  him,  and  by  the  same  kind 
of  stripes   [suffering]   which  he  endured,  we  are 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        187 

healed  [turned  back  to  God]. "  Can  you  think  of 
any  chastisement  worse  to  one  who  had  conscious- 
ness of  the  truth  than  the  indifference  of  the  world 
toward  that  truth?  Let  me  also  say  that  it  seems 
•to  me  that  wherever  the  Bible  speaks  of  the  de- 
struction of  a  sinner,  you  can  understand  the  de- 
struction, through  the  knowledge  of  truth,  of  a 
sense  of  sin  and  matter,  and  the  merging  of  the 
false  consciousness  of  having  a  carnal  mind  into 
the  mind  of  Christ,  for  then  the  one  sinner  and  the 
one  sin  are  destroyed,  because  there  is  no  conscious- 
ness of  them.  A  sense  of  sin  pertains  to  the  Adam 
man;  when  the  Bible  speaks  of  men  as  ''Sons  of 
God,"  it,  I  think,  does  not  refer  to  the  man  we 
know  with  the  material  senses  but  to  man  in 
Christ's  likeness.  Read  your  Bible  again  with  this 
thought  in  mind  and  see  if  you  do  not  agree  with 
me. 

I  think  I  can  understand  some  little  of  the  suffer- 
ing of  Jesus.  The  real  Golgotha  was  not  at  the 
cross,  but  in  the  daily  life,  in  every  moment  of  the 
life  of  the  Master.  The  failure  to  understand  his 
message,  by  those  he  loved  with  a  perfect  love, 
the  lack  of  comprehension  of  the  fact  that  between 
carnal  law  and  spiritual  truth  there  exists,  even 
though  intertwined,  a  chasm  as  wide  as  the  eternal 
seas — so  wide  that  one  shore  must  be  left  behind 
even  in  thought  before  the  other  one  can  be 
reached — so  vast  that  the  one  must  be  completely 
abandoned  before  the  other  can  fully  heal — these 
were  the  real  stripes  which  he  suffered  for  us. 


1 88  Christian  Science 

"Having  eyes  to  see  they  see  not.  Having  ears  to 
hear,  they  hear  not,  neither  do  they  comprehend,  " 
was  the  cry  of  a  soul  in  crucifixion  for  himself  and 
others ;  in  mental  pain  keener  than  all  the  physical 
suffering  since  the  world  began.  This  was  the  real 
crucifixion. 

One  who  has  seen  but  a  little  of  the  truth  knows 
a  little  of  this  suffering.  Human  love,  undirected 
by  spiritual  truth,  creates  the  tragedies  it  would 
avert,  and  through  unwise  sympathy  fosters  and 
perpetuates  the  sins  of  belief,  which  it  would  de- 
stroy. If  we  knew  the  full  truth,  I  wonder  if  we 
would  not  find  that  many  whose  powers  and  useful- 
ness fade  to  a  lingering  death  were  helped  on  the 
downward  way  by  those  who  truly  but  unwisely 
love  them.  The  pitiful  efforts  to  compromise  with 
truth,  in  order  to  retain  a  portion  of  accustomed 
untruth,  to  dissolve  the  insoluble,  to  mix  that 
which  has  less  of  affinity  than  oil  and  water,  to 
serve  God  and  Mammon  with  the  same  breath — 
all  with  what  seems  sincerity  of  purpose  and 
honesty  of  desire — is  not  this  tragedy  enough  for 
any  crucifixion  ?  And  if  those  who  see  but  little  of 
the  truth  can  comprehend  a  little  of  such  suffering 
— what  must  it  have  been  to  one  who  knew  all  of 
that  truth,  which,  if  we  could  but  see,  hear,  and 
understand,  would  make  us  free? 

Now,  let  us  see  just  what  this  conception  of  life 
means  to  you  and  to  me.  Here  we  are  equipped 
with  the  false  consciousness  of  having  carnal  mind 
(false  mind)  and  the  Mind  of  Christ  {i.e.,  conscious- 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        189 

ness  not  now  fully  active  of  the  one  Mind  without 
separation,  individual  and  universal  conscious- 
ness). Neither  one  perceives  the  things  perceived 
by  the  other.  ^  Go  through  your  Bible  again 
and  pick  out  the  places  where  the  faith  which  is 
the  "substance  of  things  hoped  for"  is  spoken  of, 
and  the  places  where  it  speaks  of  ''sowing  to  the 
flesh  corruption,  and  of  the  Spirit,  incorruption, " 
and  the  places  where  it  specifically  states  that 
corruption  and  incorruption  have  nothing  to  do 
with  each  other — doesn't  it  seem  possible  to  you 
that  our  original  statement  may  after  all  be  true, 
i.e.,  that  we  are  placed  here  between  truth  and  a 
seeming  non- truth,  something  which  while  it 
appears  to  our  carnal  minds  to  be  truth,  is  in 
reality  nothing  but  a  negative  something  which 
our  senses  deceive  us  into  believing  to  be  real. 
May  it  not  further  be  true  that  this  negative  sense 
(carnal  mind)  in  opposition  to  God's  law  is  the 
sum  oj  our  difficulties?  And  may  it  not  also  be 
true  that  the  only  way  we  can  progress  toward  true 
contentment  is  by  the  exercise  of  that  faith  ''which 
is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,"  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Mind  which  is  in  Christ,  to  the  end  that 
by  gradual  demonstration  of  the  effects  of  that 
faith  in  that  Mind  we  may  finally  come  into  the 
full  consciousness  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus  and 
leave  behind  us  the  consciousness  {i.e.,  merge  in 
true    consciousness)    of    something    which    really 

^  See  again  Mr.  Huxley  and  inferences  drawn  from  his  state- 
ments. 


190  Christian  Science 

does  not  exist  except  in  our  false  belief?  Remem- 
bering however  that  Jesus  says  there  is  a  way 
whereby  the  change  can  be  made  at  once,  let  us 
find  it. 

May  it  not  be  true  that  just  as  you  cannot  live 
now  under  water,  so  you  cannot  really  live  in  the 
consciousness  of  untruth?  If  not,  what  does  the 
Bible  mean  when  it  says,  ''Ye  are  dead  in  tres- 
passes and  sin  [a  knowledge  of  material  things], 
loving  the  darkness  rather  than  the  light "  ?  May 
it  not  again  also  be  true  that  when  the  Bible 
speaks  of  "raising  the  dead"  it  means  raising  you 
to  the  consciousness  of  the  Mind  which  was  in 
Christ  Jesus  ?  Does  this  give  you  new  light  on  the 
passage  in  the  Bible  which  says,  "The  soul  [false 
sense]  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die"  [i.e.,  get  into  this 
dream  state  'which  is  death  in  trespasses  and  sins.] 

Also  may  it  not  be  true  that  being  a  child  of  the 
light,  you  suffer,  as  long  as  you  are  in  the  darkness, 
and  love  it,  and  only  that  long  and  in  proportion 
to  your  love  of  it  ?  There  is  no  punishment,  in  the 
sense  of  retribution,  but  merely  suffering  as  long 
as  we  abide  in  the  consciousness  of  darkness 
(evil  and  matter),  because  we  cannot  really  live 
in  that  sort  of  an  atmosphere.  Also  a  comiplete 
leaving  behind  of  suffering  and  punishment,  when 
we  rise  to  the  consciousness  which  was  in  Christ 
Jesus  (and  live  in  spiritual  mind  alone).  May 
you  not  become  a  complete  new  man  C'put  on  the 
new  man" — Bible)  when  you  have  in  you  the 
Mind  which  was  in  Christ  as  a  fact  in  conscious- 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        191 

ness?  Becoming  subject  to  the  law  of  that  Mind, 
are  we  not  freed  from  the  ''law  of  sin  and  death'* 
which  is  the  law  of  the  carnal  mind  {i.e.,  the  man- 
made  law  which  is  7iot  the  law  of  God)  ? 

You  will  not  see  this  until  you  are  willing  to  try 
and  see  (Bible)  with  faith,  for  I  truly  believe  that 
this  is  the  only  way  by  which  one  can  come  into 
that  state  of  consciousness  called  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  (faith  in  the  Christ  Mind  though  it  be 
unseen),  and  I  also  truly  believe  that  all  of  the 
things  which  Jesus  tells  us,  to  the  very  smallest 
detail,  are  true  when  we  know  the  law  of  the  Mind 
of  Christ  and  cease  to  be  subject  to  the  "law  of  sin 
and  death. "  Possibly  also  faith  will  unfold  under- 
standing and  cause  the  change  much  more  quickly 
than  now  seems  possible  to  us,  if  we  really  rely  on 
and  try  it.  May  it  not  be  that  this  is  a  hint  as  to 
why  Jesus  says  it  is  a  ''present  possibility"  for  all? 

"Yes,"  you  say,  "but  this  is  a  long  way  off; 
what  can  I  do  as  a  beginning,  and  a  practical 
beginning  in  my  life?"  Well,  perhaps  it  isn't  so 
far  off  as  you  think  if,  according  to  Scripture, 
"In  him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being." 
If  there  be  another  law  which  we  cannot  know  with 
our  mortal  sense  (carnal  mind)  all  that  is  needed 
is  a  waking  of  our  spiritual  perceptions  by  means 
of  faith  in  the  unseen,  to  bring  that  new  law  (the 
law  of  the  Spirit  of  life — Bible)  into  effect.  How- 
ever, granting  that  our  fish  lines  (beliefs)  are  so 
badly  tangled  that  we  cannot  untangle  them  by 
any  method  at  once,  what  is  there  that  is  practical 


192  Christian  Science 

in  this  doctrine  outside  of  the  cure  of  disease,  and 
as  a  means  toward  growth  in  the  right  direction  ? 

And  right  here  let  me  say  one  thing.  This  new 
conception  of  things  does  one  thing  which  is  a 
great  blessing.  You  no  longer  need  think  of  your- 
self, as  being  pursued  by  a  relentless  something 
which  always  seeks  to  pull  you  down.  You  have 
to  fight  nothing.  Literally  nothing,  but  your 
own  false  senses  (not  mind)  and  what  you  thought 
you  fought  is  not  power  when  your  Christ  Mind 
has  conquered  and  in  reality  is  never  power,  only  a 
seeming  power,  the  seeming  perception  of  which  is 
due  to  the  inertness  of  mortal  mind  when  it  con- 
tacts true  spiritual  law  and  energy.  "Twice  have 
I  heard  this,  that  power  belongeth  to  God"  (and 
His  ideas).  The  devil  resolves  himself  into  your 
carnal  really  negative  (non-existent)  mind,  which, 
in  conjunction  with  the  "law  of  sin  and  death" 
{i.e.,  with  universal  mortal  mind  or  the  not  thought, 
false  mental  influence),  is  simply  the  "darkness 
which  we  have  loved  more  than  the  light."  All 
you  have  to  do  is  pull  up  the  shades,  destroy  false 
sense  by  stimulating  your  inert  powers  to  dynamic 
harmony  with  God's  law.  Your  progress  ceases 
to  be  a  fight  against  something,  and  becomes  a 
struggle  to  acquire  that  truth  which  is  the  law  of  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  Jesus.  If  not,  what  does  the  Bible 
mean  when  it  says,  "resist  not  evil,  but  overcome 
evil  with  good,"  and  "resist  the  devil  [evil 
thought]  and  he  will  flee  from  you"  [i.e.,  inert- 
ness disappear  before  the  stimuli  of  spirit].    The 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        193 

consciousness  of  the  nothingness  of  evil  comes 
when  we  have  destroyed  evil  in  our  consciousness 
by  developing  dynamic  harmony  of  power  with 
God.  Victory  over  evil,  by  the  substitution  of  real 
power  for  its  inertness,  frees  the  mind  of  the  dread- 
ful fear  of  a  suppositional  power  which  is  so  strong 
that  God  cannot  control  it.  This  is  enough  to  fill 
any  man's  life  with  a  new  joy,  if  he  can  but  grasp 
it.  "Ye  shall  know  the  truth  and  the  truth  [not  the 
operation  of  some  material  thought  or  thing,  but 
the  consciousness  of  the  truth]  shall  make  you 
free."  I  know  someone  is  going  to  say  here,  that 
these  accumulated  opinions  seem  to  have  a  good 
deal  of  power,  and  that  there  therefore  is,  even 
from  this  viewpoint,  something  to  fight.  The 
fact  that  there  is  not  is  one  of  the  things  no  one 
can  tell  you.  You  must  prove  it  as  Jesus  did  in 
his  struggle  of  the  human  with  the  divine  and 
you  can  only  realize  this  in  demonstration.  Try 
* '  not  resisting  evil ' '  but  filling  your  mind  with  goo  d 
thoughts,  until  they  destroy  the  belief  in  evil  by 
substituting  spiritual  power  for  inert  nothingness : 
then  come  to  me  and  see  if  you  do  not  agree  that 
evil  (including  inharmonious  health  ideas)  has  no 
power  except  that  which  you  give  it  by  the  exer- 
cise of  your  own  carnal  mind,  i.e.,  your  own  mind 
turning  itself  to  universal  false  opinion.  Do  not 
think  of  evil  as  something  to  fight  or  something 
that  fights,  think  of  it  as  an  inert  uninstructed 
state  of  consciousness  for  which  you  need  to  sub- 
stitute the  truth  which  will  make  you  free.    Fill  the 


194  Christian  Science 

empty  room  with  God's  light  and  truth.  Remem- 
ber *'If  God  be  for  us  who  can  be  against  us" — 
and  by  the  way,  is  there  not  a  hint  in  this  quota- 
tion as  to  the  nature  of  God?  If  God  be  All,  who 
is  there  left  who  can  be  against  us  if  He  be  for  us? 
Try  Him  and  see.  Does  "external"  evil  [false 
mental  (psychical)  influence]  ''not  mind, "  have  any 
power,  unless  something  within  responds?  Even 
though  you  cannot  overcome  at  once  your  sense  of 
matter  and  separation  from  God  you  can  avoid 
many  of  its  effects. 

Now  I  am  not  talking  of  some  Utopian  doctrine 
impossible  of  accomplishment,  at  once.  Some  of 
the  things  spoken  of  may  be  difflcult,  for  if,  as  the 
Bible  says,  those  who  "sow  to  the  flesh  corruption^ 
shall  reap  corruption,"  I  suppose  in  this  dream 
life  of  ours,  we  have  had  time  to  sow  and  may  have 
a  good  deal  to  reap.  Bear  this  in  mind  however — • 
the  reaping  spoken  of  here  does  not  seem  to  me  to 
mean  the  dreary  thing  we  have  come  to  think  it 
in  the  "law  of  sin  and  death" — punishment  for 
every  little  act  through  the  law  of  nature,  which  is 
not  God's  law,  for  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ  can  set  us  free  from  that  carnal  law.  Jesus 
says  so,  therefore,  though  I  may  not  be  able  to 
prove  this  now,  yet  I  believe  it. 

All  that  it  means  is,  that  so  long  as  we  remain  in 
the  consciousness  of  sin,  we  will  suffer,  because  we 

^  Doesn't  that  quotation  sound  a  good  deal  like  using  this  faith 
which  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for  in  the  direction  of 
material  things? 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        195 

are  out  of  our  natural  habitation.  When  we 
correct  our  false  beliefs  and  live  in  the  mind  of 
Christ  (a  process  that  must  be  quicker  than  I 
now  see,  since  Jesus  says  it  is),  we  rise  above  the 
consciousness  of  the  carnal  law  and  in  a  very  real 
sense  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  does  set 
us  free  from  that  law.  I  do  not  attempt  to  say  in 
what  surroundings  our  lives  have  been  continuous, 
but  I  feel  sure  that  they  must  have  been,  because 
my  idea  of  God  makes  that  a  necessity  and  because 
God  has  always  existed  and  man,  the  Christ  man, 
is  His  work  or  idea  and  is  the  only  man.  It  may 
not  be  possible  for  us  to  entirely  live  in  the  mind 
of  Christ  at  once.  The  path  to  knowledge  is  not 
easy — though  if  we  believe  Jesus,  we  must  believe 
that  it  is  forever  a  present  possibility.  There  is 
always  however  a  starting  point.  Our  starting 
point  is  probably  a  long  way  back  of  us,  and  we  are 
just  coming  to  see  through  the  glass  darkly  the  real 
meaning  of  our  journey.  As  we  do  see  more 
clearly,  we  should  take  the  necessary  steps  in  the 
right  direction,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  things 
we  have  been  talking  about  present  a  very  strong 
hint  of  what  those  steps  may  practically  be  to  you 
and  me  to-day. 

"What  are  they  then,"  you  ask?  Well,  first  of 
all,  any  man  can  demonstrate  to  himself  that 
health  can  be  controlled  through  controlling  and 
destroying  the  fears  of  the  carnal  mind  by  the 
concentration  and  reflection  of  the  spiritual  mind. 
If  you  will  use  half  an  hour  every  day  quietly 


196  Christian  Science 

sitting  in  your  chair  thinking  of  Bible  texts  and 
of  these  things  of  which  we  are  now  writing  and 
applying  them  to  your  own  discomforts,  you  will 
find  for  yourself  that  this  is  true,  for  both  con- 
scious and  unconscious  thought  will  gradually  be 
directed  into  normal  channels.  Even  the  physi- 
cian, as  I  have  previously  stated,  asserts  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  carnal  law  that  mind  processes 
affect  the  secretions  of  the  body,  and  I  never  hear 
that  said  but  I  think  of  the  blind  man  whom  Jesus 
cured  who,  when  asked  how  it  was  done  and  all 
about  it,  replied,  ''this  one  thing  I  know — that 
whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see";  that  fact  alone 
seemed  quite  sufficient  for  him  without  speculating 
as  to  the  exact  process,  but  I  suspect  that  the  medi- 
cal profession  will  eventually  find  that  these  benevo- 
lent "secretions"  rightly  viewed  through  spiritual 
sense  are  simply  manifestations  of  the  action  of  the 
Mind  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  awakening  (remember 
what  the  Bible  says,  "awake  thou  that  sleepest" — 
look  it  up)  and  stimulating  the  carnal  mind  to  more 
healthy  action;  the  carnal  mind  and  the  so-called 
body  being  the  same^ —  nothing — no  mind. 

*  A  clipping  from  the  Minneapolis  Tribune  in  this  regard  is 
interesting: 

"HATE  ALLOWED  TO  GROW 

Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  Shows 

Poisons  the  Human  Body 

Emotions  Affect  Every  Cell  in  Man's  System,  and  We  Are  Men' 
tally,  Morally,  and  Physically  What  Our  Thoughts  Make  Us. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        197 

Then,  secondly,  any  man  can  demonstrate  to 
his  own  satisfaction  in  the  same  way  as  above, 
that  he  is  part  of  a  second  mind  which  knows 
things — we  have  been  accustomed  to  call  this 
"intuition" — and  in  many,  through    disuse,    the 


"  I  have  noticed  for  years  that  a  person  who  habitually  indulges 
in  hate  almost  invariably  loses  health,  and  also  because  I  have  a 
concrete  example  in  a  friend  who  for  years  has  been  an  habitual, 
persistent  hater,  and  who  believed  that  hate  is  as  warrantable  in 
certain  cases  as  love. 

"This  person,  a  woman,  has  been  told  many  times  that  hate  is 
an  actual  poison,  but  she  has  flouted  the  statement  as  a  mere 
theory,  and  has  vindictively  replied,  'I  shall  hate  all  I  want 
to.' 

"She  is  now  in  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf,  and  that  which  should 
accompany  old  age,  as  honor,  love,  obedience,  troops  of  friends, 
she  does  not  have.  She  is  a  victim  of  constant  hallucinations,  a 
confirmed  hypochondriac,  frequently  exclaiming,  *0h,  I  feel 
that  my  body  is  full  of  poison.' 

"And  so  it  is;  the  poison  of  hate.  Her  indulgence  for  so  many 
years  in  hating  people  whom  she  didn't  happen  to  like  has  actually 
poisoned  her." 

WE  ARE  WHAT  OUR  THOUGHTS  MAKE  US. 

"The  writer  of  the  above  letter  is  a  man  in  the  prime  of  life, 
who  has  seen  much  of  the  world  and  has  made  a  careful  study  of 
humanity.  Whether  or  not  he  has  identified  himself  with  meta- 
physical organizations  or  studies,  I  do  not  know,  but  he  is  cer- 
tainly in  touch  with  that  philosophy. 

"Dr.  Elmer  Gates,  the  renowned  scientist,  experimented  with 
people  who  were  given  to  gloom,  anger,  and  violence,  and  found 
that  a  virulent  poison  could  be  extracted  from  a  glass  tube  in 
which  an  individual  of  this  type  breathed. 

"  Our  thoughts  produce  our  emotions;  our  emotions  affect  every 
cell  in  the  body  and  every  emanation.  We  are  physically,  men- 
tally, morally  what  our  thoughts  make  us." 

(Reprinted  with  the  permission  of  the  owners  of  the  copyright, 
the  International  News  Service.) 


198  Christian  Science 

faculty  is  latent,  or  misunderstood,  but  it  is  there, 
a  part  of  you — the  Mind  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus — 
the  Divine  One  Mind — all  you  have  to  do  is  to 
"knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you,  seek  and 
ye  shall  find."  I  mean  by  this  that  you  can  get 
accurate  information  to  guide  your  life,  and  can 
demonstrate  to  yourself  that  this  is  so,  if  you  will 
follow  consistently  the  practice  of  silent  com- 
munion with  God  as  a  daily  habit,  and  will  follow 
what  He  tells  you  through  the  medium  of  the 
spiritual  Mind.  There  is  but  one  Mind  and  life  is 
mental — is  my  understanding.  All  true  existence 
is  of  that  Mind. 

To  those  who  have  never  tried  and  therefore 
cannot  speak  from  demonstration,  this  may  seem 
again  rather  impractical — very  well,  if  you  cannot 
see  these  steps,  what  else  practical  remains?  Let 
us  recapitulate  even  though  we  seem  to  be  repeat- 
ing the  same  things  over  often.  According  to  this 
doctrine,  your  material  body  in  common  with 
everything  else  material,  not  excluding  the  laws 
of  matter  and  your  sense  of  having  a  mind  separate 
from  the  One  Mind,  is  a  belief,  a  concept  of  carnal 
mind  (carnal  mind  itself  dreams,  it  does  not  exist 
as  a  reaHty).  Therefore,  the  totality  of  your  real 
existence  is  the  true  One  Mind  and  its  ideas. 
Through  the  lack  of  use  of  the  faith  which  is  the 
substance  of  things  hoped  for  in  the  direction  of 
Spirit,  however,  you  have  (why,  we  cannot  say)  a 
false  sense  of  another  mind  which  seems  to  perceive 
things  not  in  truth  existent,  though  they  have  been 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        199 

injected  into  a  plan  of  things  which  is  true  in  such 
a  way  that  it  is  not  possible  always  for  the  false 
or  carnal  mind  to  disentangle  the  true  from  the 
false.  For  instance,  I  go  to  the  theater,  and  hear  a 
beautiful  voice  singing  a  beautiful  song  to  which 
obscene  words  have  been  added.  If  I  could  per- 
ceive the  voice  and  the  music  only,  there  would  be 
no  evil  in  the  song  for  me,  but  its  message  would  be 
uplifting.  What  I  am  saying  is  that  your  life  is 
one  of  false  non-existent  and  true  ideas,  and  in  this 
continuous  existence  of  yours,  you  have  so  long 
been  failing  to  use  your  faith  in  the  direction  of  the 
true  that  the  untrue  (absence  of  something,  dark- 
ness) seems  more  real  to  you  than  the  true. 

True  thought  is  life,  and  lays  up  treasure  where 
there  is  no  corruption.  Untrue  thought  is  deaths 
and  the  only  real  death  we  can  ever  know  is  that 
which  we  are  now  experiencing  (passing  through 
the  'Valley  of  the  shadow  of  death") — ye  are  dead 
in  trespasses  and  sins,  i.  e.,  false  consciousness 
or  matter.  If  that  faith  which  is  the  "substance 
of  things  hoped  for"  is  not  exercised  against 
this  one  lays  up  treasure  where  moth  and  rust  do 
corrupt.  Therefore,  if  you  would  find  something 
practical  to  do  in  addition  to  what  I  have  named, 
realize  that  ''as  a  man  thinketh  so  he  is,"  not  in 
the  sense  of  producing  some  effect  on  matter,  but 
in  the  sense  that  mind  is  all  and  that  life  is  ideas. 
Let  us  go  back  to  one  of  our  original  definitions — 
i.e.,  that  nothing  negative  (matter  is  negative)  has 
existence  in  the  mind  of  God  and  that  therefore, 


200  Christian  Science 

God  being  All,  negative  things  have  no  existence 
except  as  false  concepts  in  an  unreal  mind,  a 
dream.  Then  mortal  life  becomes  a  struggle  toward 
truth,  and  away  from  the  concepts  of  a  false  mind 
which  appears  to  perceive  negative  things  but 
which  has  no  power  to  hold  you  back  except  such 
seeming  power  as  you  have  yourself  and  such  as 
all  mankind  have  given  it  by  the  exercise  of  faith 
in  the  wrong  direction.  (Yes,  I  know,  there  is  a 
conflict  here,  you  will  say,  for  how  could  that 
which  is  perfect  exercise  its  faith  wrongly  ? — and  I 
have  also  told  you  that  I  stick  to  my  definition  be- 
cause to  not  do  so  is  to  deny  my  conception  of  God.) 
What  remains  practical  that  can  be  done  then? 

The  other  day  I  had  a  letter  from  a  firm  in 
Chicago.     The  letter  began  as  follows : 

Dear  Sir: 

Pick  out  and  get  rid  of :  Pick  up  and  make  use  of : 

the  loafers  the  hustlers 

the  laggers  the  pushers 

the  filchers  the  honest 

the  wasters  the  careful 

the  knockers  the  loyal 

the  inefficients  the  peaceful 

the  agitators  the  efficient   workers   and 
the  trouble  breeders  of        dividend  makers 
all  sorts 

Weed  out  the  disruptive,  destructive  elements  of 
your  working  force.  Cultivate  the  harmonizing, 
profit-building  elements. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        201 

Now  I  am  morally  certain  that  between  me  and 
the  man  that  wrote  this  letter  there  exists  a  tele- 
pathic line  of  communication,  for  when  I  sat  down 
to  write  this  book,  I  had  just  such  a  table  in  mind 
(before  I  received  the  letter).  The  letter  is  a  fine 
Christian  Science  sermon  (though  Christian  Scien- 
tists, as  you  know,  have  no  sermons)  and  I  cannot 
improve  it  except  to  say : 

Dear  Sir  or  Madam  : 

Realize  that  your  life  is  mind,  and  the  struggle 
toward  truth,  with  no  power  retarding  you  save  what 
we  may  call  your  "spiritual  inertia,"  i.e,y  mortal 
mind  (negativeness,  wo/ mind). 

Go  into  yourself  and  Go  into  yourself  and 
deny  admission  into  yotu  affirm  in  your  conscious- 
consciousness  to :  ness  as  the  only  realities : 

the  mind  that  is  in  Christ 
the  objective  mind  the  reality  of  Spirit  as  the 

the  reality  of  matter  only  reality 

the  loafing  thought  the  hustling  thought 

the  lagging  thought  the  pushing  thought 

the  filching  thought  the  honest  thought 

the  wasting  thought  the  careful  thought 

the  knocking  thought  the  loyal  thought  to  God 

the  inefficient  thought  and  man. 

the  trouble-breeding  the  efficient  thought 

thoughts  of  all  sorts  in-    the  peaceful  thought,  for 

eluding  worry  God     is     harmony     and 

for    God    cares   for    his     "great    peace   have   they 

children  that   love   the   Lord    and 

nothing  shall  offend  them  " 
(Bible) 


202  Christian  Science 

Wipe  out  the  negative  elements  of  your  thoughts. 
Cultivate  the  harmonizing  elements. 

This  is  a  thing  that  sinks  down  into  the  root  of 
your  being,  and  follows  you  every  moment  of  the 
day  and  the  night.  If  you  think  an  untrue  critical 
thought  of  another  ("judge  not  that  ye  be  not 
judged" — Bible),  you  strengthen  your  own  belief 
in  the  negative  unreal  things  of  life,  and  you  send 
forth  a  "not  thought"  into  the  world  which  im- 
pedes or  inertly  drags  on  others,  for  another  thing 
that  can  be  demonstrated  is  that  thoughts  are 
things,  and  do  not  need  the  vehicle  of  speech  in 
order  to  be  conveyed  to  others.  That  is  what  an 
"absent"  treatment  means — a  message  through 
the  One  Mind  to  raise  your  consciousness.  Re- 
member life  is  psychical  influence,  review  Mr. 
Holt's  remarks  again  if  forgotten.  If  you  think 
a  helpful  thought  toward  another,  you  are  build- 
ing your  belief  in  spiritual  things,  the  positive 
side  of  life,  you  are  exercising  the  faith  which  is 
the  substance  of  things  hoped  for  in  the  direction 
of  truth  and  not  of  falsity.  You  are  helping  both 
yourself  and  others  and  constant  faithful  endeavor 
in  this  direction  with  prayerful  study  of  the  words 
of  Jesus  will  bring  you  where  you  will  see  and  can 
demonstrate  many  of  the  things  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking,  but  which  may  now  seem  unreal  to 
you. 

Let  me  see  if  I  can  give  you  an  illustration.  A 
few  weeks  ago  some  friends  of  mine  were  camping 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        203 

in  Northern  Minnesota,  and  were  about  ready  to 
break  camp  to  go  to  another  place.  One  of  them 
had  to  go  into  the  forest  for  a  time  to  get  some 
things  left  behind  the  day  before.  He  said  to  the 
man  who  does  the  camp  work,  ''Meet  us  at  the 
bridge  in  an  hour  with  the  boats  all  packed. "  His 
reply  was,  "I  can't  do  it.  There  isn't  time. "  My 
friend  thought  that  he  could  do  what  he  had  asked 
in  the  time  mentioned,  and  he  thought  the  man 
could  also.  His  mind  began  to  run  on  thoughts 
like  these:  ''He  is  inefficient,  slow,  unambitious, 
lazy."  These  are  negative  thoughts,  you  see,  and 
in  a  few  minutes  he  had  worked  himself  into  a  fine 
state  of  disgust,  irritation,  etc.,  thoughts  of  the 
mortal  mind.  But  along  came  something  else 
which  said,  "This  is  no  way  to  do,  you  are  injuring 
yourself,  and  defeating  your  own  ends.  TJie  man 
can  do  that  if  he  only  thinks  so.''  He  gave  himself 
to  this  thought,  "Overcoming  evil  with  good,'* 
and  all  he  said  to  the  man  was,  "Oh,  I  think  you 
can  if  you  hustle."  His  own  mind  became  quiet 
and  the  man  was  there  on  time. 

Now  this  is  just  a  crude  illustration,  and  you 
will  have  to  exercise  the  quality  of  faith  to  under- 
stand that  the  thought  had  an  effect,  at  least  you 
will  until  you  have  demonstrated  that  fact  many 
times,  as  you  can  if  you  try.  I  am  giving  the  illus- 
tration to  you,  to  help  you  see  that  to  me  this  is  a 
thing  which  comes  into  every  relation  of  life  as  a 
vitality,  every  moment  of  the  day. 

But  you  say,  "You  are  telling  us  nothing  new. 


204  Christian  Science 

We  have  always  known  that  we  ought  to  weed  out 
the  inefficients  from  our  business."  Please  mark 
■ — I  did  not  say  inefficients.  I  said  inefficient 
thoughts — ^for  undoubtedly  by  your  thought  of  a 
man,  including  yourself,  expressed  or  unexpressed, 
you  help  him  to  be  just  that  which  you  think  him. 
What  you  have  always  known  is  like  this  but  not 
just  like  it.  Mankind,  as  I  have  elsewhere  stated 
it  as  my  belief,  has  always  been  on  the  way  back  to 
God.  If  we  came  from  Him  originall}^  I  cannot  but 
believe  that  He  will  reclaim  to  Himself  eventually 
all  that  He  gave.  In  other  words,  I  don't  believe 
in  eternal  punishment.  That  which  seems  eternal 
to  the  finite  mind  may  not  be  so  to  infinite  Mind 
and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  Bible  indicates  that  all 
that  will  be  burned  in  the  lake  of  fire  (fire  of  spirit) 
is  mankind's  false  beliefs  and  false  ideas.  So  we 
have  all  been  on  our  way  back  to  a  knowledge  of 
our  Heavenly  Father  which  is  eternal  Life,  or  a 
consciousness  of  eternal  Life,  and  many  of  the 
things  we  have  been  doing,  and  saying,  are  just 
what  we  should  do  and  say — but  don't  you  think 
the  time  may  have  come  when  we  can  get  a 
clearer  view  of  the  reason  for  it  all  and  may  it 
not  be  that  having  that  clearer  view  we  can  ex- 
pand that  which  we  have  been  doing  and  do  it 
more  intelligently,  because  we  realize  where  it  is 
taking  us,  and  in  a  measure,  how?  While  we  may 
have  been  always  eliminating  the  inefficient,  does 
it  not  illuminate  our  action  in  doing  so  to  know  that 
all  is  Mind  and  Mind's  ideas,  and  that  we  should 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        205 

start  our  elimination  at  the  root  of  things,  and 
eliminate  at  the  source  the  unreal  thoughts  which 
when  projected  into  false  ideas  of  the  absence  of 
Good  become  what  we  have  been  accustomed  to 
think  of  as  the  reality,  when  it  was  only  the  dream? 
This  conception  of  life  is  not  a  radical  departure 
from  present  conditions.  If  you  overeat  you  will 
suffer,  but  under  the  processes  described  you  must 
think  of  your  sufferings  as  proceeding  from  a 
mental,  though  not  an  intelligent  cause' — not 
from  a  material  cause.  The  new  belief  makes  a 
vast  change  in  your  thinking,  for  it  reveals  all  real 
thought  as  a  reflection  of  the  Divine  and  ascribes 
power  to  Him  alone ;  avast  improvement  in  the  way 
in  which  life  affects  you;  it  destroys  as  much  of 
false  psychic  inertia  (carnal  law)  as  can  be  made 
to  come  within  your  comprehension  of  true  law. 
It  forever  removes  the  fear  of  an  aggressive  some- 
thing having  power  which  seeks  to  pull  you  down 
— but  the  influences  around  you  remain  the  same 
till  they  have  been  changed  by  the  gradual  uplift- 
ing of  your  own  and  of  the  thoughts  of  all  men. 
Your  response  to  these  influences  changes — and 
they  are  plainly  seen  to  be  not  material  influences 
but  mental  inertias  to  be  overcome  by  mental 
means  as  fast  as  you  can  obtain  the  knowledge  to  do  it. 
Further  this  belief  presents  the  hope  that  since 
life  is  a  succession  of  states  of  consciousness, 
there  is  a  way — as  Jesus  indicates  there  is — by 

^  Lack  of  control  throwing  you  open  to  the  negative  inertia  of 
the  carnal  law  excess — not  God. 


2o6  Christian  Science 

which  consciousness  can  be  raised  much  more 
speedily  than  by  the  long  way  of  experience. 
Don't  say  this  cannot  be  true  because  it  has  never 
been.  Ask  yourself,  "Of  how  much  of  mortal 
man's  total  history  on  earth  have  I  knowledge?" 
Not  more  than  a  few  thousand  out  of  possible 
millions  of  years. 

Suppose  I  give  you  another  illustration.  Your 
type  of  mind  may  not  be  just  that  to  be  outlined 
but  I  find  there  are  many  I  have  talked  with  whose 
minds  work  in  the  same  manner.  Let  us  suppose 
that  you  have  a  sense  of  pain  and  you  commence 
to  think  about  it.  Your  mind  concentrates  on  it. 
You  wonder  why  it  is;  how  it  comes  about;  what 
is  the  material  cause  of  it;  what  you  can  do  with 
medicine  to  make  it  better.  You  can  in  the 
course  of  a  very  few  hours  work  yourself  into  a 
belief  that  you  are  on  the  way  to  permanent  in- 
validism. When  you  are  going  through  these 
mind  processes  I  have  just  described,  you  are 
thinking  negative  thought. 

Suppose  the  next  time  this  occurs  to  you,  instead 
of  turning  your  mind  towards  the  pain,  saying  to 
yourself,  "This  pain  has  reality,  and  there  must  be 
a  material  cause  for  it,"  you  take  the  opposite 
tack.  Think  that  the  pain  can  have  no  existence 
because  matter  cannot  feel.  That  it  proceeds 
from  uncontrolled  mind  processes.  See  Mr. 
Huxley  again.  Distract  your  mind  from  it  as 
much  as  possible  and  instead  of  trying  to  analyze 
it  and  hypothesize  a  possible  reason  for  it,  treat  it 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        207 

so  far  as  you  can  as  non-existent.  Then,  in  place 
of  the  thought  which  you  have  partially  destroyed, 
fill  your  mind  full  of  the  thought  that  ' '  God  is  the 
only  Reality";  that  matter  and  pain  do  not  exist 
except  as  a  concept  of  false  mind  (which  it  is 
granted  may  seem  to  be  a  very  real  concept).  I 
say  try  this,  even  if  it  does  seem  foolish  to  you, 
that  is,  think  positive  thoughts  with  the  spiritual 
mind,  and  see  what  the  result  is.  You  may  not 
see  any  very  striking  results  at  first,  but  continue 
to  try  it  and  see  what  conclusion  you  finally  reach. 
I  do  not  state  what  I  think  it  will  be.  I  would  like 
to  see  you  try  and  make  an  example  for  yourself. 

You  can  at  least  take  a  long  step  in  the  right 
direction  by  ceasing  to  think  to  yourself  or  talk  to 
others  about  what  this  feeling  or  that  feeling,  this 
symptom  or  that  symptom,  this  ache  or  that  ache 
signifies.  Also  it  would  be  a  long  step  in  the  right 
direction  to  cease  to  think  and  talk  about  what 
Doctor  so  and  so  said  about  these  things,  and  to 
induce  the  good  doctor  to  do  the  same.  Remember 
*' psychic  influences. " 

Again,  suppose  you  are  approaching  some  work 
that  you  wish  to  do,  and  the  thought  comes  into 
your  mind,  "It  is  too  much  for  me.  I  fear  that 
I  cannot  accomplish  it.  My  strength  will  not  be 
equal  to  the  task."  You  can  very  readily  create 
within  yourself  the  idea  that  you  are  inefiicient, 
unable  to  do  that  which  other  men  do,  and  that 
you  are  foredoomed  to  failure.  In  other  words, 
you  can  create  the  impression  within  your  mind 


2o8  Christian  Science 

that  it  is  not  possible  for  you  to  give  expression  to 
the  ideas  of  God  or  to  create  things.  You  are 
thinking  negative  thoughts;  the  thoughts  of  a 
carnal  mind;  the  thoughts  of  the  "law  of  sin  and 
death. "  Suppose  that  the  next  time  this  happens 
to  you,  you  take  the  opposite  tack  and  say,  "I  am 
an  idea  of  God.  The  power  which  is  His,  is  mine. 
I  can  express  His  ideas  because  that  was  what  He 
created  me  for.  I  have  the  power  and  am  an  idea 
of  the  Universal  Mind."  "The  eternal  God  is  my 
refuge,  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms." 
By  thinking  in  this  way,  you  are  using  the  powers 
of  the  subjective  mind;  of  the  mind  which  is  in 
Christ,  the  One  Mind,  and  are  correcting  the  false 
impression  which  arises  from  the  material  senses. 
You  are  striving  toward  a  realization  that  there 
is  but  One  Mind,  from  which  you  are  not  separate, 
I  suggest  again  only  that  you  try  this  for  your- 
self. I  do  not  say  that  you  will  see  immediate 
results,  but  if  you  try  and  try  again  I  feel  sure  that 
you  will  discover  something  for  yourself  that  no 
one  else  can  tell  you.  You  will  be  exercising  your 
faith  which  can  bring  into  substance  the  things 
hoped  for  in  the  direction  of  the  things  which  you 
should  hope  for,  instead  of  in  the  direction  of  the 
things  which  you  had  better  forget,  for  it  is  my 
opinion  based  on  my  own  experience  that  all  nega- 
tive thoughts  of  any  character,  including  many  more 
than  those  specifically  directed  against  health, 
work  themselves  out  eventually  in  so-called  physi- 
cal conditions.    Watch  yourself  carefully  and  see 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        209 

if  this  is  not  true  in  your  case.  /  think  you  will 
make  some  remarkable  discoveries  about  yourself  if 
you  will  observe  closely.  Refer  again  to  the  Ella 
Wheeler  Wilcox  article  previously  quoted. 

Most  people  who  try  to  take  these  slight  first 
steps,  which  seem  unimportant,  like  them  so  well 
that  they  eventually  conclude  to  go  farther  and 
revise  their  entire  previous  conception  of  life  and 
its  meaning,  for  such  is  the  usual  result  of  taking 
the  first  small  steps  in  the  direction  of  learning 
that  truth  which  will  eventually  make  us  free. 

There  is  just  one  more  thing  I  want  to  say, 
before  I  finish  this  chapter.  Many  of  you  will  say 
**Well,  if  life  is  continuous,  why  do  I  not  re- 
member former  experiences?  Are  you  sure  you 
don't  remember  the  essentials  of  them  {uncon- 
scious thoughts)  ?  It  seems  difficult  to  account  for 
some  things  which  we  ignorantly  call  instincts 
otherwise,  or  to  account  for  the  differing  charac- 
teristics of  your  children  we  will  say — but  assum- 
ing that  you  don't  remember  even  the  essentials, 
may  it  not  be  that  this  is  simply  a  result  of  the 
operation  of  the  carnal  law  which  in  the  course  of 
many  millions  of  years  man  has  made  for  himself, 
the  law  which  seems  to  separate  and  divide  you 
from  the  One  Mind  and  which  using  that  limited 
vehicle,  human  reason,  says,  ''If  you  have  been  a 
doctor  and  need  experience  as  a  Christian  Science 
practitioner,  you  must  be  made  to  forget  the  details 
of  your  doctor  experience  because  only  thus  can 
you  give  your  full  thought  to  the  other,"  or  some- 
14 


2IO  Christian  Science 

thing  equally  inaccurate,  such  as  repayment  of 
each  little  debt  contracted  here.  In  other  words, 
just  as  an  unverifiable  speculation,  if  you  please, 
may  it  not  be  a  part  of  the  carnal  so-called  law, 
made  by  man,  with  which  God  has  had  nothing  to 
do,  and  from  which  you  will  be  freed  by  the  law  of 
the  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ?  A  stage  of  conscious- 
ness imposed  on  you  by  mortal  law,  a  conscious- 
ness of  separateness  from  the  One  Mind  which  is 
a  false  consciousness,  a  part  of  the  effort  to  un- 
tangle your  fish  line  by  the  long  process  of  pulling 
the  end  back  through  all  the  holes.  Karma  as  the 
Occultists  call  it.  Naturally  I  don't  know  that  this 
is  so.  It  is  only  a  guess.  But  of  this  I  do  feel  sure 
— that  what  I  call  my  present  life  is  to  my  total 
existence  only  as  a  drop  of  water  in  the  ocean — 
and  by  that  I  do  not  mean  to  infer  ultimate 
complete  absorption  of  individuality  by  any 
means. ' 

Remember  that  this  mortal  law  has  had  a  long 
time  to  grow.  I  confess  I  am  not  very  greatly. 
interested  in  how  I  have  lived  or  how  I  am  going 
to  live.  I  mean  just  the  precise  conditions  under 
which  I  have  lived  or  ''my  influence  for  good  in 
other  lives"  so-called.  It  doesn't  interest  me  so 
long  as  it  is  a  relation  of  a  sense  of  separation  from 
the  One  Mind.  I  have  read  volumes  on  this  sub- 
ject and  they  don't  seem  to  reach  my  consciousness 
with  a  real  interest.  I  have  attended  materializing 
seances,   and  have  seen  phenomena  which  may 

^Please  see  page  64,  paragraph  3  in  this  regard. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       211 

have  been  genuine — I  don't  deny  the  possibility — 
and  for  those  who  can  obtain  a  conviction  of  the 
continuity  of  Hfe  in  no  other  way  perhaps  such 
demonstrations  are  helpful — but  after  all,  it 
seems  to  me  a  continuation  of  the  same  old  dreary 
round  of  matter.  If  it  be  possible  for  the  mortal 
minds  of  those  who  have  gone  on  to  gather  around 
themselves  a  clothing  or  illusion  of  matter  again 
and  appear  to  our  eyes  or  sense  of  matter  here — 
and  I  don't  deny  the  possibility;  in  fact  I  can 
explain  some  things  I  have  seemed  to  see  on  no 
other  reasonable  basis — what  is  it  but  an  operation 
of  the  carnal  law,  from  which  I  would  fain  be 
freed,  by  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ, 
just  as  soon  as  possible?  And  if  it  teaches  me  that 
after  I  leave  here,  and  do  what  is  called  "dying," 
I  go  on  in  some  kind  of  a  body  composed  of 
** matter"  (a  consciousness  of  darkneso  less  per- 
haps than  that  I  know  now,  but  none  the  less 
darkness)  is  not  that  also  a  part  of  the  operation 
of  the  carnal  law,  from  which  I  wish  to  be  freed? 
''The  flesh  profiteth  nothing."  If  I  could  get 
from  those  who  have  gone  on,  some  spiritual  advice, 
truer  and  more  reliable  than  that  which  I  can  get 
for  myself  by  consulting  God  through  the  divine 
within  me,  I  could  consider  such  investigation 
worth  pursuing,  but  frankly,  the  type  of  mind 
manifested  through  seances  does  not  impress  me 
as  knowing  as  much  as  I  do  myself  about  the  things 
which  I  wish  to  know.  They  may  know  something 
about  the  conditions  in  which  they  seem  to  be 


212  Christian  Science 

living  (though  even  here  they  don't  tell  much)  but 
if  it  be  a  condition  which  is  bound  in  consciousness 
of  any  kind  of  matter,  I  don't  want  to  know  about 
it,  because  it  is  that  which  I  wish  to  escape  and  be 
freed  from,  by  the  Mind  which  is  in  Christ. 

I  have  heard  of  communications  which  appeared 
to  be  from  beyond  which  are  of  the  higher  nature — 
such  as  might  come  from  a  nature  which,  because 
of  its  wider  experience,  could  more  closely  under- 
stand God;  indeed  if  you  will  search  your  Bible, 
you  will  find  that  it  speaks  of  these;  and  such  I 
receive  gladly  for  without  going  into  the  argu- 
ments for  and  against,  there  does  not  seem  to  me, 
at  least,  to  be  any  a  priori  reason  why  communi- 
cation is  impossible  for  those  who  are  in  sympathy 
with  spiritual  thought,  but  if  I  had  advice  to  offer 
or  were  asked  to  give  it,  I  would  most  certainly 
say  that  the  average  spiritualistic  seance  was, 
truly  viewed,  only  a  materialistic  seance;  that 
(without  any  insinuation  of  deliberate  fraud — 
though  that  is  undoubtedly  often  a  fact)  the 
things  seen  there  were  just  as  much  a  delusion  as 
your  present  consciousness  of  material  "life" 
and  no  more  so;  that  there  was  with  few  excep- 
tions nothing  helpful  to  be  learned;  that  they 
might  much  better  be  left  alone,  and  forgotten  in 
a  whole-souled  endeavor  to  apprehend  spiritual 
truth  only — I  may  say  that  these  conclusions  have 
been  reached  by  the  process  of  trying  the  thing  out 
for  myself,  both  ways.  This  is  not  saying,  however, 
that  there  may  not  be  some  good  and  growth  to  be 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        213 

derived  from  the  proper  study  of  mental  pheno- 
mena— just  as  the  chemist,  the  doctor,  the  business 
man,  and  the  Christian  Scientist  are  all  on  the  way 
to  the  same  destination,  and  will  finally  find  the 
only  road  that  leads  to  Eternal  life,  so  also  are  the 
psychologists  and  the  spiritualists.  I  am  only 
telling  you  that  which  seems  to  me  the  way  Christ 
trod  and  the  route.  Perhaps  you  cannot  see  it, 
and  then  you  will  have  to  follow  your  own  path- 
way; if  I  can  I  will  help  you  with  all  my  heart,  and 
will  meet  you  at  the  journey's  end  when  we  both 
reach  that  consciousness  of  God  which  is  eternal  life 
and  the  true  home  of  man. 

The  Occultists  have  a  doctrine  which  they  call 
*' Karma."  I  believe  it  is  founded  on  the  idea 
that  if  equilibrium  is  disturbed  anywhere  in  the 
Cosmos  it  must  eventually  be  restored.  If  you 
sin  you  must  expiate  that  sin,  that  equilibrium 
may  be  restored.  If  to-day  you  injure  a  man  you 
must  come  back  to  dense  material  life  at  some 
future  time  in  order  to  pay  your  debt  to  that  man. 
This  seems  to  me  to  be  a  very  good  example  of 
carrying  the  analogies  of  the  carnal  law  into  a 
consideration  of  spiritual  matters.  So  far  as  my 
reasoning  mind  is  concerned  I  confess  that  it 
seems  to  me  a  very  logical  theory — it  fulfills  the 
demands  of  what  my  carnal  mind  calls  "justice" 
but  not  of  that  which  my  spiritual  mind  knows  is 
love.  "God  is  love."  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is 
one  way  by  which  mankind  can  progress  toward 
the  goal  we  all  are  striving  to  reach.     However, 


214  Christian  Science 

let  us  suppose  it  to  be  a  fact — would  there  be 
any  end  to  such  a  condition?  Can  you  conceive 
of  living  any  lifetime  without  in  some  way  creating 
debts  which  from  this  point  of  view  would  have  to 
be  paid  ?  Would  equilibrium  ever  be  restored  unless 
God  Himself  restored  it  through  love?  If  the 
Occultists  would  state  their  doctrine  in  a  somewhat 
different  way  and  say  that  man  must  live  in  his 
present  consciousness  of  limitation  till  he  corrects 
that  in  himself  which  leads  him  to  injure  another ^ 
I  could  come  further  into  agreement  with  it.  It 
would  then  be  a  statement  that  man  must  live  as 
now,  till  he  raises  his  consciousness  to  an  under- 
standing of  God — not  a  mere  mechanical  round  of 
retribution — a  blind  principle  without  mercy  or 
forgiveness;  but  even  when  stated  in  this  way — a 
way  with  which  I  can  more  fully  agree — the  doc- 
trine does  not  seem  to  me  to  fill  the  full  measure  of 
the  Salvation  provided  by  a  loving  God.  It  is 
only  a  part  of  the  statement,  for  Jesus  certainly 
tells  me  that  while  the  method  of  gradual  experi- 
ence is  one  way  of  raising  consciousness  to  a 
knowledge  of  God,  there  is  another  way  through 
belief  in  the  Only  Begotten  Son,  in  the  Christ 
Mind,  by  which  the  false  consciousness  which  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  call  ''life"  can  be  more 
speedily  corrected  and  be  made  right.  Can  you 
otherwise  conceive  that  Jesus  the  exponent  of 
truth  should  have  said,  *^Beye  therefore  perfect,'* 
*'He  that  belie veth  in  me  hath  eternal  life"  ?  This 
way  personally  I  believe  to  be  an  absolute  trust 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       215 

in  that  faith  which  brings  into  substance  the 
things  hoped  for,  and  the  exercise  of  that  faith  in 
the  direction  of  the  Christ  law.  At  the  end  of  the 
journey  I  believe  we  will  find  this  to  have  been 
fact — that  there  is  a  way  by  which  we  can  gain 
understanding  which  is  a  quicker  way  than  that  of 
detailed  experience — the  conviction  is  with  me 
but  I  do  not  see  the  way  with  clearness  enough  as 
yet  to  give  it  expression  in  words. 

The  doctrine  of  Karma  seems  to  me  a  logical 
outcome  of  the  idea  of  a  God  who  contains  both 
Good  and  evil  within  Himself,  i.e.,  man's  idea  of 
God;  the  Lord  God  in  the  second  chapter  of 
Genesis,  the  God  of  the  carnal  law.  A  contradic- 
tion in  terms  to  me,  for  if  evil  be  of  God  and  God 
eternal,  evil  is  eternal  and  will  always  be.^  Con- 
sequently evil  would,  by  this  idea,  always  be  a 
part  of  the  order  of  life  and  unescapable.  The  idea 
of  a  God  Himself  evolving  or  less  than  all  and  all 
good — to  me  is  no  foundation  for  life  (a  house 
divided  against  itself,  says  Jesus,  shall  fall)  but 
I  have  no  quarrel  with  those  who  believe  this. 
We  are  all  on  the  same  journey  and  in  the  end  will 
know  who  is  right  to-day  in  the  beliefs  now  held. 
God  will  lead  us  all  eventually  to  know  the  truth 
and  to  freedom.  Neither  your  opinions  nor  mine 
nor  those  of  the  Occultists  will  change  the  truth. 
You  recall  that  the  Bible  says,  "not  one  jot  or 
tittle  shall  pass  from  the  law  till  all  be  fulfilled,"  but 
it  also  says,  ''love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law." 

^  See  Psalm  146:  6. 


2i6  Christian  Science 

Reverse  the  word  fulfill.  Read  it  ''filled  full '*  and 
''filling  fuir*  in  these  two  quotations  and  see  if  you 
get  a  new  meaning. 

"In  my  Father's  House  [the  real  spiritual  body 
of  man]  are  many  mansions  [many  ways  of  ex- 
pressing the  ideas  of  God]."  "I  go  [I  live]  to 
prepare  a  place  for  you  [I  live  that  you  may  know 
how  to  live  in  the  consciousness  of  God],  that 
where  I  am  [now  in  the  true  consciousness  of  God] 
there  ye  may  be  [now]  also.'* 

'  I  can  only  say  try  this  way  if  you  have  not,  for 
only  by  rising  to  somewhat  of  the  consciousness  of 
the  unreality  of  matter  and  only  by  worshiping 
God  alone  and  ceasing  to  worship  matter  in  the 
person  of  your  so-called  physical  body,  can  you 
demonstrate  these  things  to  yourself  as  realities 
of  spirit. 

I  cannot  urge  too  strongly  upon  the  reader  the 
study  of  the  Scripture  passages  which  follow,  for 
only  thus  will  the  book  be  understood.  Before 
reading  the  passages,  please  refer  to  and  read 
paragraph  2,  on  page  40,  and  the  note  on  page 
166. 


THE  TWO  MINDS  IN  MAN 

Galatians  4:  19-31.  My  little  children,  of  whom 
I  travail  in  birth  again  until  Christ  he  formed  [the 
Christ  mind  become  regnant]  in  you, 

I  desire  to  be  present  with  you  now,  and  to  change 
my  voice;  for  I  stand  in  doubt  of  you. 

Tell  me,  ye  that  desire  to  be  under  the  law,  do  ye  not 
hear  the  law? 

For  it  is  written,  that  Abraham  had  two  sons,  the 
one  by  a  bondmaid,  the  other  by  a  freewoman. 

But  he  who  was  of  the  bondwoman  was  bom  after 
the  flesh ;  but  he  of  the  freewoman  was  by  promise. 
:  Which  things  are  an  allegory:  for  these  are  the  two 
covenants;  the  one  from  the  Mount  Sinai,  which 
gendereth  to  bondage  [carnal  law  and  mind],  which  is 
Agar. 

For  this  Agar  is  Mount  Sinai  [from  which  the  ten 
commandments]  in  Arabia,  and  answereth  to  Jeru- 
salem which  now  is,  and  is  in  bondage  with  her  children. 

But  Jerusalem  which  is  above  [Christ  mind]  is  free, 
which  is  the  mother  of  us  all. 

For  it  is  written.  Rejoice,  thou  barren  that  bearest 
not ;  break  forth  and  cry,  thou  that  travailest  not :  for 
the  desolate  hath  many  more  children  than  she  which 
hath  an  husband. 

Now  we,  brethren,  as  Isaac  was,  are  the  children  of 
promise. 

217 


2i8  Christian  Science 

But  as  then  he  that  was  born  after  the  flesh  perse- 
cuted [the  struggle  between  false  and  true  conceptions] 
him  that  was  born  after  the  Spirit,  even  so  it  is  now. 

Nevertheless  what  saith  the  Scripture?  Cast  out 
the  bondwoman  and  her  son :  for  the  son  of  the  bond- 
woman shall  not  be  heir  with  the  son  of  the  free- 
woman. 

So  then,  brethren,  we  are  not  children  of  the  bond- 
woman, but  of  the  free. 

Matt.  6:  24,  31-33.  No  man  can  serve  two 
masters  [mortal  and  spiritual  mind] ;  for  either  he  will 
hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other;  or  else  he  will  hold 
to  the  one,  and  despise  the  other.  Ye  cannot  serve 
God  and  mammon.  [See  remarks  about  those  who 
take  an  extreme  though  a  wrong  attitude.] 

Therefore  take  no  thought,  saying,  What  shall  we 
eat?  or.  What  shall  we  drink?  or,  Wherewithal  shall  we 
be  clothed?  (For  after  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles 
seek :)  for  your  heavenly  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have 
need  of  all  these  things.  But  seek  ye  first  the  King- 
dom of  God  [spiritual  consciousness],  and  his  righte- 
ousness; and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto 
you  [in  sufficient  quantity]. 

II.  Cor.  11:3.  But  I  fear,  lest  by  any  means,  as 
the  serpent  [carnal  mind]  beguiled  Eve  through  his 
subtilty,  so  your  minds  should  be  corrupted  from  the 
simplicity  that  is  in  Christ  [the  truth  of  the  mind  of 
Christ]. 

Jeremiah  29:  8,  1 1,  12,  13.  For  thus  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel ;  Let  not  your  prophets 
and  your  diviners  [carnal  minds],  that  be  in  the  midst 
of  you  [each  of  you],  deceive  you,  neither  hearken  to 
your  dreams  which  ye  cause  to  be  dreamed  [sense 
of  matter]. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       219 

For  I  know  the  thoughts  that  I  think  toward  you, 
saith  the  Lord,  thoughts  of  peace  [the  spiritual  law], 
and  not  of  evil  [the  carnal  mind],  to  give  you  an 
expected  end  [death  and  "eternal"  punishment]. 

Then  shall  ye  call  upon  me,  and  ye  shall  go  and 
pray  unto  me,  and  I  will  hearken  unto  you.  And  ye 
shall  seek  me,  and  find  me,  when  ye  shall  search  for 
me  with  all  your  heart.  [Both  minds;  carnal  mind 
redeemed.]  ^ 

Ephesians  i:  18.  The  eyes  of  your  understand- 
ing [of  the  true  body;  God's  idea  or  body;  the  mind  of 
Christ]  being  enlightened;  that  ye  may  know  what  is 
the  hope  of  his  calling,  and  what  the  riches  of  the  glory 
of  his  inheritance  in  the  saints.  [The  mind  which  was 
in  Christ.] 

Ezekiel  2:  1-2.  And  he  said  unto  me,  Son  of 
man,  stand  upon  thy  feet,  and  I  will  speak  unto  thee. 
And  the  spirit  [the  mind  of  Christ]  entered  into  me 
when  he  spake  unto  me,  and  set  me  upon  my  feet,  that 
I  heard  him  that  spake  unto  me. 

Matt.  11:  27-30.  All  things  are  delivered  unto 
me  of  my  Father ;  and  no  man  knoweth  the  Son  [mind 
of  Christ]  but  the  Father;  neither  knoweth  any  man 
the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the 
Son  [you  know  God  through  the  Christ  spirit  within] 
will  reveal  him.  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor 
and  are  [carnal  mind]  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you 
rest  [a  knowledge  or  consciousness  of  spiritual  law 
which  is  not  man's  law  but  is  something  entirely 
different].  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me; 
for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart:  and  ye  shall  find 
rest  unto  your  souls.  For  my  yoke  is  easy,  and  my 
burden  is  light: 

Job   22:  23.       If   thou   return  to   the    Almighty 


220  Christian  Science 

[the  Mind  of  Christ  within  you],  thou  shalt  be  built  up, 
thou  shalt  put  away  iniquity  [the  carnal  mind  and 
law]  far  from  thy  tabernacles.  [The  whole  body,  God's 
idea,  which  "groweth  together"  (Bible).  "In  whom 
all  the  building  fitly  framed  together  groweth  unto  an 
holy  temple  in  the  Lord. "] 

Matt.  9:  16-17.  No  man  putteth  a  piece  of 
new  cloth  unto  an  old  garment ;  for  that  which  is  put 
in  to  fill  it  up  taketh  from  the  garment,  and  the  rent 
is  made  worse.  Neither  do  men  put  new  wine  into 
old  bottles;  else  the  bottles  break,  and  the  wine 
runneth  out,  and  the  bottles  perish:  but  they  put  new 
wine  into  new  bottles,  and  both  are  preserved.  [The 
body  (God's  idea  of  it)  a  new  bottle,  preserves  both 
minds  of  man  and  they  become  one.] 

Matt.  12 :  29-30.  Or  else  how  can  one  enter  into 
a  strong  man's  house  [carnal  mind  and  its  idea  of 
God],  and  spoil  his  goods,  except  he  first  bind  the 
strong  man?  and  then  he  will  spoil  his  house.  He  that 
is  not  with  me  is  against  me ;  and  he  that  gathereth  not 
with  me  scattereth  abroad. 

Haggai  2:  6,9.  For  thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts; 
Yet  once,  it  is  a  little  while,  and  I  will  shake  the 
heavens,  and  the  earth,  and  the  sea,  and  the  dry  land. 
The  glory  of  this  latter  house  [Mind  of  Christ  and 
spiritual  law]  shall  be  greater  than  of  the  former 
[carnal  mind  and  law],  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts:  and 
in  this  place  will  I  give  peace,  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts. 

Luke  6:  45.  A  good  man  [spiritual  mind]  out 
of  the  good  treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that 
which  is  good ;  and  an  evil  man  out  of  the  evil  treasure 
of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that  which  is  evil ;  for  of  the 
abundance  of  the  heart  his  mouth  speaketh.     [Faith 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       221 

brings  into  substance  the  law  of  sin  and  death  or  the 
spiritual  law  according  to  its  use.] 

John  3:  31.  He  that  cometh  from  above  is 
above  all  [spiritual  mind]:  he  that  is  of  the  earth  is 
earthly  [carnal  mind],  and  speaketh  of  the  earth 
[carnal  law]:  he  that  cometh  from  heaven  [spiritual 
mind]  is  above  all. 

John  5:  19-24.  Then  answered  Jesus  and  said 
unto  them,  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  The  Son 
[Mind  of  Christ  in  you]  can  do  nothing  of  himself, 
but  what  he  seeth  the  Father  do;  for  what  things 
soever  he  doeth  these  also  doeth  the  Son  likewise. 
For  the  Father  loveth  the  Son,  and  sheweth  him  all 
things  that  himself  doeth :  and  he  will  shew  him  greater 
works  than  these,  that  ye  may  marvel. 

For  as  the  Father  raiseth  up  the  dead  [ye  are  dead 
in  trespasses  and  sins]  [i.e.,  a  knowledge  of  matter] 
and  quickeneth  them;  even  so  the  Son  quickeneth 
whom  he  will.  For  the  Father  judgeth  no  man,  but 
hath  committed  all  judgment  unto  the  Son  [the  mind 
of  Christ  in  every  man] :  That  all  men  should  honor 
the  Son,  even  as  they  honor  the  Father.  He  that 
honoreth  not  the  Son  [spiritual  mind  and  its  ideas] 
honoreth  not  the  Father  which  hath  sent  him.  Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  you.  He  that  heareth  my  word,  and 
believeth  on  him  that  sent  me,  hath  everlasting  Hfe, 
and  shall  not  come  into  condemnation;  but  is  passed 
from  death  [carnal  law]  unto  life  [spiritual  law]. 

II.  Thessalonians  2:  7-10.  For  the  mystery  of 
iniquity  doth  already  work:  only  he  who  now  letteth 
will  let  [the  carnal  mind,  false  mind],  until  he  be  taken 
out  of  the  way.  [Absorbed  in  the  true  consciousness 
of  the  mind  of  Christ  and  freed  from  the  law  of  sin  and 
death.]     And  then  shall  that  Wicked  [carnal  mind, 


222  Christian  Science 

false  Mind,  the  one  evil]  be  revealed,  whom  the  Lord 
shall  consume  with  the  spirit  of  his  mouth  [the  Mind 
of  Christ]  and  shall  destroy  with  the  brightness  of  his 
coming:  Even  him,  whose  coming  is  after  the  working 
of  Satan  [carnal  mind,  the  "wonders"  of  the  law  of 
sin  and  death]  with  all  powers  and  signs  and  lying 
wonders.  And  with  all  deceivableness  of  unrighteous- 
ness in  them  that  perish ;  because  they  received  not  the 
love  of  the  truth,  that  they  might  be  saved.  ^ 

I.  John  5:  9-12.  If  we  receive  the  witness  of 
men  [carnal  mind],  the  witness  of  God  [the  only 
begotten  Son  of  the  Father  in  each  man  in  whom 
believing  i.e.,  living  in  his  consciousness,  we  shall  be 
saved]  is  greater:  for  this  is  the  witness  of  God  which 
he  hath  testified  of  his  Son.  He  that  believeth  on  the 
Son  of  God  [the  Christ  spirit  within]  hath  the  witness  in 
himself  [what  does  this  mean? — think  it  over] ;  he  that 
believeth  not  God  hath  made  him  a  liar  [the  carnal 
mind,  always  a  lie  and  all  its  law  a  lie  including  the 
sense  of  evil  and  matter] ;  because  he  believeth  not  the 
record  that  God  gave  of  his  Son  [the  only  begotten 
within  you].  And  this  is  the  record,  that  God  hath 
given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is  in  his  Son  [the 
mind  and  law  of  the  Christ  within]. 

He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  [i.e.,  the  consciousness  of 
the  Christ  Mind  is  life ;  and  we  are  dead  in  trespasses 
and  sins  who  live  under  the  sense  of  existence  of 
matter  and  evil]  life;  and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  of 
God  hath  not  life. 

Rev.  3:  13.  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear 
what  the  Spirit  saith  unto  the  churches. 

Deut.  25:  13-15.  Thou  shalt  not  have  in  thy 
bag  divers  weights,  a  great  [mind  of  Christ]  and  a 

*  See  previous  note  about  destruction  of  evil  qualities. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       223 

small  [carnal  mind].  Thou  shalt  not  have  in  thine 
house  divers  measures,  a  great  and  a  small. 

Thou  shalt  have  a  perfect  and  just  weight  [the  Mind 
of  Christ],  a  perfect  and  just  measure  shalt  thou  have: 
that  thy  days  may  be  lengthened  in  the  land  which  the 
Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee. 

Psalm  73:  26.  My  flesh  and  my  heart  faileth 
[carnal  mind]:  but  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart 
[mind  of  Christ],  and  my  portion  forever. 

John  3:  II,  12,  31.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
thee.  We  speak  that  we  do  know,  and  testify  that 
we  have  seen;  and  ye  receive  not  our  witness.  If  I 
have  told  you  earthly  things,  and  ye  believe  not,  how 
shall  ye  believe  if  I  tell  you  of  heavenly  things?  He 
that  Cometh  from  above  is  above  all  [Christ  Mind]: 
he  that  is  of  the  earth  is  earthly  [carnal  mind],  and 
speaketh  of  the  earth :  he  that  cometh  from  heaven  is 
above  all  [carnal  law  and  spiritual  law  have  nothing 
in  common]. 

John  8:  23-24,  43,  44,  45.  And  he  said  unto 
them.  Ye  are  from  beneath  [mortal  sense] ;  I  am  from 
above  [Mind  of  Christ] ;  ye  are  of  this  world;  1  am  not 
of  this  world.  I  said  therefore  unto  you,  that  ye  shall 
die  in  your  sins:  for  if  ye  believe  not  that  I  am  he 
[and  vivify  your  mind  which  is  of  Christ],  ye  shall  die 
in  your  sins  [till  you  do  you  are  dead  in  trespasses 
and  sins].  Why  do  ye  not  understand  my  speech? 
[carnal  mind  cannot  understand  God] ;  even  because  ye 
cannot  hear  my  word.  Ye  are  of  your  father  the 
devil  [carnal  mind]  and  the  lusts  of  your  father  ye 
will  do :  he  was  a  murderer  from  the  beginning,  and 
abode  not  in  the  truth,  because  there  is  no  truth  in 
him.  When  he  speaketh  a  lie,  he  speaketh  of  his  own: 
for  he  is  a  liar,  and  the  father  of  it  [carnal  mind  a  lie]. 


224  Christian  Science 

And  because  I  tell  you  the  truth,  ye  believe  me 
not. 

John  8:  34,  35,  36.  Jesus  answered  them, 
Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Whosoever  committeth 
sin  [i.e.,  the  carnal  mind  of  man]  is  the  servant  of  sin. 

And  the  servant  [carnal  mind  of  man]  abideth  not 
in  the  house  forever :  but  the  Son  [the  Mind  of  Christ 
in  man]  abideth  ever. 

If  the  Son  therefore  shall  make  you  free  [from  the 
perception  of  sin  by  the  carnal  mind  or  objective 
mind  of  man]  ye  shall  be  free  indeed. 

Isaiah  50:  10.  Who  is  among  you  that  feareth 
the  Lord,  that  obeyeth  the  voice  of  his  servant  [carnal 
mind],  that  walketh  in  darkness,  and  hath  no  light? 
let  him  trust  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  stay  upon  his 
God.  [Consider  this  in  connection  with  the  previous 
quotation.  Can  you  frame  another  sensible  interpreta- 
tion?] 

I.[Cor.  15:  54.  So  when  this  corruptible  [carnal 
mind]  shall  have  put  on  incorruption  [Christ  Mind], 
and  this  mortal  shall  have  put  on  immortality,  then 
shall  be  brought  to  pass  the  saying  that  is  written, 
Death  is  swallowed  up  in  victory  [sense  of  death  is 
lost  in  consciousness  of  continuous  life]. 

John  5 :  30-31.  I  can  of  mine  own  self  do  nothing: 
as  I  hear  [from  the  spiritual  law  of  God],  I  judge:  and 
my  judgment  is  just ;  because  I  seek  not  mine  own  will, 
but  the  will  of  the  Father  which  hath  sent  me.  If  I 
bear  witness  of  myself  [carnal  mind  alone  testifies  of 
itself  alone;  God  testifies  of  the  spiritual  mind  and 
law],  my  witness  is  not  true. 

Romans  8:  6.  But  to  be  spiritually  minded 
[mind  of  Christ  in  you]  is  life  and  peace. 

Ephesians  i:  18.      The  eyes  of  your  understand- 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        225 

ing  being  enlightened  [Mind  of  Christ] ;  that  ye  may 
know  what  is  the  hope  of  his  caUing. 

I.  John  5:  9-12.  If  we  receive  the  witness  of 
men  [i.e.,  of  carnal  mind  as  to  carnal  law],  the  witness 
of  God  is  greater  [to  spiritual  law] :  for  this  is  the  wit- 
ness of  God  which  he  hath  testified  of  his  Son.  He 
that  believeth  on  the  Son  of  God  hath  the  witness  in 
himself  [a  consciousness  of  the  Christ  mind] ;  he  that 
believeth  not  God  hath  made  him  a  liar;  because  he 
believeth  not  the  record  that  God  gave  of  his  Son  [the 
mind  of  Christ].  And  this  is  the  record,  that  God  hath 
given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  this  [i.e.  he  in  whom  that 
mind  which  is  of  Christ  rules]  life  is  in  his  Son  [liv- 
ing the  Christ  mind  which  is  in  and  a  part  of  you]. 
He  that  hath  the  Son  [the  mind  of  Christ  in  him]  hath 
life;  and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  hath  not  life. 

Rev.  3:  20-21.  Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door,  and 
knock  [of  mind] ;  if  any  man  hear  my  voice,  and  open 
the  door,  /  will  come  in  to  him  [consciousness  of  Christ 
Mind  in  man],  and  will  sup  with  him,  and  he  with  me. 

To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  grant  to  sit  with  me 
in  my  throne,  even  as  I  also  overcame,  and  am  set 
down  with  my  Father  in  his  throne.  [Consciousness 
of  God.]  [Eternal  continuous  life,  with  no  appear- 
ance of  breaks  in  consciousness.] 

Rev.  12:  lo-ii.  And  I  heard  a  loud  voice  saying 
in  heaven,  Now  is  come  salvation,  and  strength,  and 
the  kingdom  of  our  God,  and  the  power  of  his  Christ 
[mind] ;  for  the  accuser  of  our  brethren  [carnal  mind] 
is  cast  down,  which  accused  them  before  our  God  day 
and  night. 

And  they  [minds  of  Christ]  overcame  him  [carnal 
mind]  by  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  [by  the  knowledge 
of  the  meaning  of  Jesus'  death],  and  by  the  word  of 

i5 


226  Christian  Science 

their  testimony ;  and  they  loved  not  their  lives  unto  the 
death  [sense  of  matter]. 

Rev.  21 :  2-4,  7,  23,  24.  And  I  John  saw  the 
holy  city,  new  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from  God  out 
of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  husband. 

And  I  heard  a  great  voice  out  of  heaven  saying, 
Behold,  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men  [the  habita- 
tion of  the  Christ  mind],  and  he  will  dwell  with  them, 
and  they  shall  be  his  people,  and  God  himself  shall  be 
with  them,  and  be  their  God. 

And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes ; 
and  there  shall  be  no  more  death  [sense  of  death  and 
matter,  but  continuous  consciousness  of  God],  neither 
sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more 
pain;  for  the  former  thiyigs  are  passed  away  [carnal 
law]. 

He  that  overcometh  shall  inherit  all  things;  and  I 
will  be  his  God,  and  he  shall  be  my  son  [mind  of 
Christ]. 

23.  And  the  city  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither  of 
the  moon,  to  shine  in  it:  for  the  glory  of  God  did 
lighten  it,  and  the  Lamh  is  the  light  thereof, 

24.  And  the  nations  of  them  which  are  saved  shall 
walk  in  the  light  of  it  [knowledge  of  God  through  the 
Christ  Mind];  and  the  kings  of  the  earth  do  bring 
their  glory  and  honor  into  it. 

Rev.  22:  3,  4,  5,  14,  17.  And  there  shall  be  no 
more  curse  [carnal  law] :  but  the  throne  of  God  and  of 
the  Lamb  shall  be  in  it;  and  his  servants  shall  serve 
him: 

4.  And  they  shall  see  his  face:  and  his  name  shall 
be  in  their  foreheads. 

5.  And  there  shall  be  no  night  there  [no  darkness 
because  no  matter] ;  and  they  need  no  candle,  neither 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       227 

light  of  the  sun ;  for  the  Lord  God  giveth  them  light:  and 
they  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever. 

14.  Blessed  are  they  that  do  his  commandments, 
that  they  may  have  right  to  the  tree  of  life  [Christ 
Mind  and  spiritual  consciousness],  and  may  enter  in 
through  the  gates  into  the  city. 

17.  And  the  Spirit  and  the  bride  say,  Come. 
And  let  him  that  heareth  say,  Come.  And  let  him 
that  is  athirst,  come.  And  whosoever  will,  let  him 
take  the  water  of  life  freely  [spiritual  law  open  to  all]. 

Deut.  15:  9,  10.  Beware  that  there  be  not  a 
thought  in  thy  wicked  heart  [carnal  mind],  saying. 
The  seventh  year,  the  year  of  release,  is  at  hand ;  and 
thine  eye  be  evil  against  thy  poor  brother,  and  thou 
givest  him  nought:  and  he  cry  unto  the  Lord  against 
thee,  and  it  be  sin  unto  thee. 

Thou  shalt  surely  give  him,  and  thine  heart  shall 
not  be  grieved  when  thou  givest  unto  him;  because 
that  for  this  thing  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  bless  thee 
in  all  thy  works,  and  in  all  that  thou  puttest  thine 
hand  unto. 

Matt.  6:  23,  24,  31,  33.  But  if  thine  eye  be 
evil  [material],  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  dark- 
ness. If  therefore  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness, 
how  great  is  that  darkness! 

No  man  can  serve  two  masters:  for  either  he  will 
hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other;  or  else  he  will  hold 
to  the  one,  and  despise  the  other.  Ye  cannot  serve 
God  and  mammon. 

Therefore  take  no  thought,  saying,  What  shall  we 
eat?  or.  What  shall  we  drink?  or,  Wherewithal  shall 
we  be  clothed  [material  thoughts]? 

(For  after  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek:) 
for  your  heavenly  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need 


228  Christian  Science 

of  all  these  things.  But  seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of 
God,  and  his  righteousness ;  and  all  these  things  shall  be 
added  unto  you  [in  sufficient  measure.     Try  it  and  see]. 

Matt.  9:  16,  17.  No  man  putteth  a  piece  of 
new  cloth  [Christ  mind]  unto  an  old  garment  [carnal 
mind] ;  for  that  which  is  put  in  to  fill  it  up  taketh  from 
the  garment,  and  the  rent  is  made  worse.  Neither  do 
men  put  new  wine  into  old  bottles:  else  the  bottles 
break,  and  the  wine  runneth  out,  and  the  bottles 
perish:  but  they  put  new  wine  into  new  bottles,  and 
both  are  preserved. 

Matt.  13:  19-22.  When  any  one  heareth  the 
word  of  the  kingdom,  and  understandeth  it  not,  then 
Cometh  the  wicked  one  [your  own  carnal  mind  turned 
to  carnal  law],  and  catcheth  away  that  which  was 
sown  in  his  heart.  This  is  he  which  received  seed  by 
the  way  side.  But  he  that  received  the  seed  into  stony 
places,  the  same  is  he  that  heareth  the  word,  and  anon 
with  joy  receiveth  it  [carnal  mind  alone];  Yet  hath 
he  not  root  in  himself  but  dureth  for  a  while :  for  when 
tribulation  or  persecution  ariseth  because  of  the  word, 
by  and  by  he  is  offended. 

Luke  6:  45.  A  good  man  [spiritual  mind]  out  of 
the  good  treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that 
which  is  good ;  and  an  evil  man  [carnal  mind]  out  of  the 
evil  treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that  which  is 
evil:  for  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  his  mouth 
speaketh.  [Where  your  treasure  is  there  will  your 
heart  be  also.] 

[Please  try  to  interpret  the  three  ensuing  verses,  (i) 
On  the  ordinarily  accepted  theory  of  consciousness  and 
(2)  on  the  theory  of  consciousness  set  forth  in  this  hook. 
Do  this  for  yourself  and  see  into  which  theory  the  words 
of  Jesus  quoted  fit  the  best:] 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       229 

John  9:  39,  40,  41.  And  Jesus  said,  For  judg- 
ment I  am  come  into  this  world,  that  they  which  see 
not  might  see;  and  that  they  which  see  might  be  made 
blind. 

And  some  of  the  Pharisees  which  were  with  him 
heard  these  words,  and  said  unto  him,  Are  we  blind 
also? 

Jesus  said  unto  them,  If  ye  were  blind,  ye  should 
have  no  sin,  hut  now  ye  say.  We  see;  therefore  your 
SIN  remaineth. 

Amos  7:  7,  8.  Thus  he  shewed  me:  and,  behold, 
the  Lord  stood  upon  a  wall  made  by  a  plumb  line,  with 
a  plumbline  in  his  hand. 

And  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Amos,  what  seest  thou? 
And  I  said,  A  plumbline  [divided  mind].  Then  said 
the  Lord,  Behold,  I  will  set  a  plumbline  in  the  midst 
of  my  people  Israel :  I  will  not  again  pass  by  them  any 
more. 

Romans  8:  15-19.  For  ye  have  not  received  the 
spirit  of  bondage  again  to  fear:  but  ye  have  received 
the  Spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  we  cry,  Abba,  Father. 

The  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit, 
that  we  are  the  children  of  God : 

And  if  children,  then  heirs;  heirs  of  God,  and  joint 
heirs  with  Christ ;  if  so  be  that  we  suffer  with  him,  that 
we  may  be  also  glorified  together. 

For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present  time 
are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  which 
shall  be  revealed  in  us. 

For  the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  [carnal 
mind]  waiteth  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of 
God  [spiritual  mind]. 

Isaiah  61:  i.  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is 
upon  me;  because  the  Lord  hath  anointed  me  to 


230  Christian  Science 

preach  good  tidings  unto  the  meek ;  he  hath  sent  me  to 
bind  up  the  brokenhearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the 
captives  [carnal  mind],  and  the  opening  of  the  prison 
to  them  that  are  bound  [with  carnal  law]. 

Lord  I  [the  Christ  Mind]  believe;  help  thou  mine 
unbelief  [carnal  mind]. 


IMMORTAL    MIND. 

Note:  The  reader  is  asked  to  attempt  a  reconciliation  of  the 
verses  under  this  heading  with  those  under  the  heading  "Mortal 
Mind  and  the  Devil. "  If  the  Bible  be  an  inspired  volume,  surely 
there  must  be  some  at-one-ment  for  such  conflicting  statements. 

Gen.  1 :  26.  And  God  said,  Let  us  make  man 
in  our  image,  after  our  likeness:  and  let  them  have 
dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl 
of  the  air,  and  over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the  earth, 
and  over  every  creeping  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the 
earth.  [Doesn't  sound  like  man  as  we  know  him, 
does  it  ?] 

Psalm  119:  89-91.  Forever,  0  Lord,  thy  word 
is  settled  in  heaven.  Thy  faithfulness  is  unto  all 
generations:  thou  hast  established  the  earth  [God's 
idea  of  it],  and  it  abideth.  They  continue  this  day  [the 
Mind  of  Christ  now,  not  at  some  far  distant  time,  also 
it  always  has  been],  according  to  thine  ordinances: 
for  all  are  thy  servants.  [Does  not  this  sound  to  you 
as  though  there  is  a  perfect  man  under  each  of  us? 
Surely  you  cannot  twist  this  to  fit  mortal  man.] 

John  1 :  1-14.  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word 
[ideas],  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was 
God.  The  same  was  in  the  beginning  with  God.  All 
things  were  made  by  him;  and  without  him  was  not 
anything  made  that  was  made.  In  him  was  life 
[goodness] ;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men.     And  the 

231 


232  Christian  Science 

light  shineth  in  darkness  [a  sense  of  matter];  and  the 
darkness  comprehended  it  not.  There  was  a  man 
sent  from  God,  whose  name  was  John.  The  same 
came  for  a  witness,  to  bear  witness  of  the  Light,  that 
all  men  through  him  might  believe.  He  was  not  that 
Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear  witness  of  that  Light. 
That  was  the  true  Light,  which  lighteth  every  man 
that  Cometh  into  the  world  [the  Mind  of  Christ, 
the  only  begotten  Son].  He  was  in  the  world,  and 
the  world  was  made  by  him,  and  the  world  knew  him 
not.  He  came  unto  his  own,  and  his  own  received 
him  not.  But  as  many  as  received  him,  to  them  gave 
he  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God  [to  live  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  Mind  of  Christ],  even  to  them  that 
believe  on  his  name.  Which  were  born,  not  of  blood, 
nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man  [i.e.j 
under  the  carnal  law,  so-called  law  made  by  man. 
Sounds  like  a  method  of  birth  unknown  to-day,  doesn't 
it?],  but  by  God.  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh 
[had  the  same  sense  of  matter],  and  dwelt  among  us, 
(and  we  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only 
begotten  of  the  Father),  full  of  grace  and  truth. 

Mark  4:  30-32.  And  he  said,  Whereunto  shall 
we  liken  the  kingdom  of  God  [Christ  Mind]  ?  or  with 
what  comparison  shall  we  compare  it?  It  is  like  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  which,  when  it  is  sown  in  the 
earth  [the  carnal  mind],  is  less  than  all  the  seeds  that 
becometh  greater  than  all  herbs,  and  shooteth  out 
be  in  the  earth:  But  when  it  is  sown,  it  groweth  up, 
and  great  branches ;  so  that  the  fowls  of  the  air  [ideas 
of  God]  may  lodge  under  the  shadow  of  it.  [See  Matt. 
17-21.] 

Isaiah  45:  Vs.  11-13.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  the 
Holy  One  of  Israel,  and  his  Maker,  Ask  me  of  things 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       233 

to  come  concerning  my  sons,  and  concerning  the  work 
of  my  hands  command  ye  me.  I  have  made  the  earth 
[the  real  earth,  not  the  earth  as  man  knows  it],  and 
created  man  upon  it ;  I,  even  my  hands,  have  stretched 
out  the  heavens,  and  all  their  host  have  I  commanded. 
I  have  raised  him  [true  man]  up  in  righteousness,  and 
I  will  direct  all  his  ways.  [Not  like  carnal  law,  do  you 
think  so?] 

Psalm  82:  6.  I  have  said.  Ye  are  gods  [the 
mind  of  Christ] ;  and  all  of  you  are  children  of  the  Most 
High. 

Psalm  16:  8-10.  I  have  set  the  Lord  always 
before  me ;  because  he  is  at  my  right  hand,  I  shall  not 
be  moved. 

Therefore  my  heart  is  glad,  and  my  glory  rejoiceth: 
my  flesh  also  shall  rest  in  hope.  For  thou  wilt  not 
leave  my  soul  in  hell  [a  sense  of  matter] ;  neither  wilt 
thou  suffer  thine  Holy  One  [Christ  Mind]  to  see  cor- 
ruption.    ["Corruption  cannot  inherit  incorruption.  "] 

Matt.  6:  22-23.  The  light  of  the  body  [God's 
idea  or  body]  is  the  eye ;  if  therefore  thine  eye  be  single 
[toward  spirit  alone]  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of 
light  [truth]  But  if  thine  eye  be  evil  [a  false  idea  of 
material  eye],  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  darkness 
[a  perception  of  matter]. 

Job  33:  4.  The  Spirit  of  God  hath  made  me, 
and  the  breath  of  the  Almighty  [Mind  of  Christ  in  me] 
hath  given  me  life. 

Amos  4:  13.  For,  lo,  he  that  formeth  the 
mountains,  and  createth  the  wind,  and  declareth 
unto  man  what  is  [what  is  real  in  his  thought]  his 
thought,  that  maketh  the  morning  darkness,  and 
treadeth  upon  the  high  places  of  the  earth,  The  Lord, 
The  God  of  hosts,  is  his  name. 


234  Christian  Science 

Mark  ii:  21-24.  And  Peter  calling  to  remem- 
brance saith  unto  him,  Master,  behold,  the  fig  tree 
which  thou  cursedst  is  withered  away.  And  Jesus 
answering  saith  unto  them,  Have  faith  in  God.  For 
verily  I  say  unto  you.  That  whosoever  shall  say  unto 
this  mountain  [a  material  thing].  Be  thou  removed, 
and  be  thou  cast  into  the  sea ;  and  shall  not  doubt  in  his 
heart  [spiritual  perceptions;  carnal  mind  cannot, 
because  it  is  enmity  to  God],  but  shall  believe  that 
those  things  which  he  saith  shall  come  to  pass;  he 
shall  have  whatsoever  he  saith.  Therefore  I  say  unto 
you,  What  things  soever  ye  desire,  when  ye  pray, 
believe  that  ye  receive  them,  and  ye  shall  have  them. 

Mark  16:  17,  18.  And  these  signs  shall  follow 
them  that  believe  [live  in  the  mind  which  was  in 
Christ  Jesus].  In  my  name  shall  they  cast  out  devils; 
they  shall  speak  with  new  tongues;  They  shall  take 
up  serpents;  and  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing,  it 
shall  not  hurt  them;  they  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick, 
and  they  shall  recover.  [I  personally  believe  this  to 
be  literally  true  to  one  who  lives  solely  with  the  Mind 
of  Christ  and  has  been  thereby  set  free  from  the  law 
of  sin  and  death  though  probably  it  will  not  be  done 
to-day.] 

John  5:  19-24.  Then  Jesus  answered  and  said 
unto  them,  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you.  The  Son 
[the  mind  of  Christ  in  every  man]  can  do  nothing  of 
himself,  but  what  he  seeth  the  Father  do:  for  what 
things  soever  he  doeth,  these  also  doeth  the  Son  like- 
wise [the  Son  is  the  Father's  expression].  For  the 
Father  loveth  the  Son,  and  slioweth  him  all  things  that 
himself  doeth  [The  mind  of  Christ  in  you  entitles 
you  to  the  Father's  knowledge  of  all  things.  Try  it 
and  see]:  and  he  will  shew  him  greater  works  than 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       235 

these,  that  ye  may  marvel.  [If  Jesus  had  been  speak- 
ing of  himself,  only,  do  you  think  he  would  have 
spoken  this  last  sentence  ?]  For  as  the  Father  raiseth 
up  the  dead,  and  quickeneth  them;  even  so  the  Son 
[the  mind  of  Christ]  quickeneth  whom  he  will  whoever 
tries  to  control,  by  the  mind  of  Christ  within  himself, 
the  carnal  mind,  can  control  whom  he  will;  [he  will 
seek  to  do  nothing  wrong].  For  the  Father  judge th 
no  man,  but  hath  committed  all  judgment  unto  the 
Son :  That  all  men  should  honour  the  Son,  even  as  they 
honour  the  Father.  He  that  honoureth  not  the  Son 
honoureth  not  the  Father  which  hath  sent  him. 
Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  He  that  heareth  my 
word,  and  believeth  [lives  with  the  mind  of  Christ] 
on  him  that  sent  me,  hath  everlasting  life,  and  shall 
not  come  into  condemnation ;  but  is  passed  from  death 
[carnal  law]  unto  life  [spiritual  life]. 

Luke  6:  43,  44,  45.  For  a  good  tree  [spiritual 
mind]  bringeth  not  forth  corrupt  fruit  [carnal  law]; 
neither  doth  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit 
[spiritual  law].  For  every  tree  is  known  by  his  own 
fruit.  For  of  thorns  men  [carnal  mind]  do  not  gather 
figs,  nor  of  a  bramble  bush  gather  they  grapes.  A 
good  man  [the  mind  in  Christ  Jesus]  out  of  the  good 
treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that  which  is  good ; 
and  an  evil  man  [the  carnal  mind]  out  of  the  evil 
treasure  [perception  of  matter]  of  his  heart  bringeth 
forth  that  which  is  evil:  for  of  the  abundance  of  the 
heart  his  mouth  speaketh.  [Faith  which  is  the  sub- 
stance of  things  hoped  for  exercised  in  the  wrong 
direction.] 

John  15:  7.  If  ye  abide  in  me,  and  my  words 
abide  in  you,  ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be 
done  unto  you. 


236  Christian  Science 

John  14:  12.  He  that  belie veth  [lives  with  the 
mind  of  Christ]  on  me,  the  works  that  I  do,  shall  he 
do  also:  and  greater  works  than  these  shall  he  do; 
because  I  go  unto  my  Father. 

Proverbs  16:  7.  When  a  man's  ways  please  the 
Lord,  he  maketh  even  his  enemies  [carnal  mind,  its 
laws  and  thoughts]  to  be  at  peace  with  him. 

Exodus  23 :  25 .  And  ye  shall  serve  the  Lord  your 
God,  and  he  shall  bless  thy  bread,  and  thy  water;  and 
I  will  take  sickness  away  from  the  midst  of  thee. 

Proverbs  29:  18.  Where  there  is  no  vision  [faith 
which  is  the  evidence  of  things  unseen],  the  people 
perish ;  but  he  that  keepeth  the  law  [the  spirituallaw, 
not  the  carnal  law],  happy  is  he. 

Isaiah  26:  3.  Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace, 
whose  mind  is  stayed  on  thee  [mind  of  Christ] ;  be- 
cause he  trusteth  in  thee.  [But  you  must  trust  and 
not  keep  running  around  trying  to  do  things  better 
than  God.] 

Isaiah  30:  20,  21.  And  though  the  Lord  give  you 
the  bread  of  adversity  [consciousness  of  matter — 
why,  I  do  not  know],  and  the  water  of  affliction,  yet 
shall  not  thy  teachers  be  removed  into  a  corner  any 
more,  but  thine  eyes  shall  see  thy  teachers  [the  Mind 
of  Christ  will  become  more  and  more  in  consciousness] : 

And  thine  ears  shall  hear  a  word  behind  thee,  saying, 
This  is  the  way,  walk  ye  in  it,  when  ye  turn  to  the 
right  hand,  and  when  ye  turn  to  the  left  [a  picture  of 
redemption  through  gradually  coming  to  live  with  the 
Christ  Mind]. 

Exodus  15:  2.  The  Lord  is  my  strength  and  song^ 
and  he  is  become  my  salvation:  he  is  my  God,  and 
I  will  prepare  him  an  habitation  [mind  of  Christ] ;  my 
Father's  God,  and  I  will  exalt  him. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        237 

Jeremiah  9:  23,  24.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Let  not 
the  wise  man  [carnal  mind]  glory  in  his  wisdom  [car- 
nal law],  neither  let  the  mighty  man  [see  Ecc.  12: 
3]  [carnal  mind]  glory  in  his  might,  let  not  the  rich 
man  [rich  in  a  perception  of  material  things]  glory 
in  his  riches :  But  let  him  that  glorieth  glory  in  this, 
that  he  understandeth  [a  state  of  consciousness]  and 
knoweth  me,  that  I  am  the  Lord  which  exercise  loving- 
kindness,  judgment,  and  righteousness,  in  the  earth 
[the  true  earth,  God's  idea];  for  in  these  things  I 
delight,  saith  the  Lord. 

Ezekiel  34:  ii,  12,  16.  For  thus  saith  the  Lord 
God;  Behold,  I,  even  I,  will  both  search  my  sheep 
[the  minds  of  Christ  in  men],  and  seek  them  out.  As 
a  shepherd  seeketh  out  his  flock  in  the  day  that  he  is 
among  his  sheep  that  are  scattered:  so  will  I  seek  out 
my  sheep,  and  will  deliver  them  out  of  all  places 
where  they  have  been  scattered  in  the  cloudy  [a  sense 
of  matter]  and  dark  day.  I  will  seek  that  which  was 
lost  [carnal  minds],  and  bring  again  that  which  was 
driven  away,  and  will  bind  up  that  which  was  broken, 
and  will  straighten  that  which  was  sick. 

Exodus  29 :  46.  And  they  shall  know  that  I  am  the 
Lord  their  God,  that  brought  them  forth  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt  [from  mortal  sense],  that  I  dwell 
among  them :  I  am  the  Lord  their  God. 

Matthew  5:6,  16.  Blessed  are  they  which  do  hun- 
ger and  thirst  after  righteousness :  for  they  shall  be 
filled. 

Let  your  light  so  shine  [the  mind  of  Christ  in  you] 
before  men,  that  they  may  see  your  good  works,  and 
glorify  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

Matt.  13:  23.  But  he  that  received  seed  into 
the  good  ground  is  he  that  heareth  the  word,  and 


238  Christian  Science 

understandeth  it;  which  also  beareth  fruit,  and 
bringeth  forth,  some  an  hundred  fold,  some  sixty, 
some  thirty. 

Habakkuk  3:  17,  18.  Although  the  fig  tree  shall 
not  blossom,  neither  shall  fruit  be  in  the  vines;  the 
labour  of  the  olive  shall  fail,  and  the  fields  shall  yield 
no  meat;  the  flock  shall  be  cut  off  from  the  fold, 
and  there  shall  be  no  herd  in  the  stalls:  Yet  I  will 
rejoice  in  the  Lord,  I  will  joy  in  the  God  of  my  salva- 
tion.    [Material  things,  no  reality.] 

Isaiah  42:  6,  7.  I  the  Lord  have  called  thee  in 
righteousness  [the  mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus], 
and  will  hold  thine  hand,  and  will  keep  thee,  and  will 
give  thee  for  a  covenant  of  the  people,  for  a  light  of 
the  Gentiles;  To  open  the  blind  eyes,  to  bring  out  the 
prisoners  from  the  prison  [the  carnal  mind],  and  them 
that  sit  in  darkness  [a  sense  of  matter],  out  of  the 
prison  house  [the  carnal  mind]. 

Malachi  4:  2,  3.  But  unto  you  that  fear  my  name 
shall  the  Sun  of  righteousness  [the  Only  Begotten 
Son,  in  each  man's  heart,  a  part  of  man's  mind]  arise 
with  healing  in  his  wings;  and  ye  shall  go  forth,  and 
grow  up  as  calves  of  the  stall.  And  ye  shall  tread 
down  the  wicked  [carnal  mind  and  law] ;  for  they  shall 
[see  notes  regarding  construction  to  be  put  on  de- 
struction of  evil]  be  ashes  under  the  soles  of  your  feet 
in  the  day  that  I  shall  do  this,  saith  The  Lord  of  hosts. 

Psalms  8 :  3-6.  When  I  consider  thy  heavens,  the 
work  of  thy  fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars,  which 
thou  hast  ordained; 

What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him?  and  the 
son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him? 

For  thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels,  and  hast  crowned  him  with  glory  and  honour. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       239 

Thou  madest  him  to  have  dominion  over  the  works 
of  thy  hands ;  thou  hast  put  all  things  under  his  feet. 

John  15:  10.  If  ye  keep  my  commandments  [the 
spiritual  law],  ye  shall  abide  in  my  love;  even  as  I 
have  kept  my  Father's  commandments,  and  abide  in 
his  love. 

Joel  2:  28,  32.  (Part)  And  it  shall  come  to  pass 
afterward,  that  I  will  pour  out  my  Spirit  [the  mind 
which  was  in  Christ]  upon  all  flesh ;  and  your  sons  and 
your  daughters  shall  prophesy,  your  old  men  shall 
dream  dreams,  your  young  men  shall  see  visions:  And 
it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  whosoever  shall  call  on  the 
name  of  the  Lord  [mind  of  Christ  communing  with 
God],  shall  be  delivered. 

John  3:  3.  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him, 
Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee.  Except  a  man  be  born 
again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God  [get  a  new 
consciousness  which  is  one  with  God's  consciousness]. 

John  3:  31.  He  that  cometh  from  above  is  above 
all  [spiritual  mind] :  he  that  is  of  the  earth  is  earthly 
[carnal  mind],  and  speaketh  of  the  earth  [carnal  law]: 
he  that  cometh  from  heaven  [spiritual  mind]  is 
above  all. 

Matt.  17:  14-21.  And  when  they  were  come  to 
the  multitude,  there  came  to  him  a  certain  man, 
kneeling  down  to  him,  and  saying,  Lord,  have  mercy 
on  my  son;  for  he  is  lunatic,  and  sore  vexed:  And  I 
brought  him  to  thy  disciples,  and  they  could  not  cure 
him.  Then  Jesus  answered  and  said,  0  faithless 
and  perverse  generation,  how  long  shall  I  be  with  you? 
how  long  shall  I  suffer  you  ?  bring  him  hither  to  me. 
And  Jesus  rebuked  the  devil;  and  he  departed  out  of 
him;  and  the  child  was  cured  from  that  very  hour. 
Then  came  the  disciples  to  Jesus  apart,  and  said, 


240  Christian  Science 

Why  could  not  we  cast  him  out?  And  Jesus  said 
unto  them,  Because  of  your  unbelief  [carnal  mind]; 
for  verily  I  say  unto  you,  If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of 
mustard  seed  [in  the  highest  mind,  the  only  begotten 
son,  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ],  ye  shall  say 
unto  this  mountain,  Remove  hence  to  yonder  place; 
and  it  shall  remove;  and  nothing  shall  be  impossible 
unto  you. 

Howbeit  this  kind  goeth  not  out  but  by  prayer 
[communion  with  God  through  the  Christ  Mind]  and 
fasting  [from  all  material  perceptions]. 

John  5:  19-23.  Then  answered  Jesus  and  said 
unto  them.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  The  Son 
[mind  of  Christ  in  you]  can  do  nothing  of  himself, 
but  what  he  seeth  the  Father  do  [the  divine  plan 
rules] :  for  what  things  soever  he  doeth  these  also  doeth 
the  Son  likewise  [spiritual  mind].  For  the  Father 
loveth  the  Son,  and  sheweth  him  all  things  that 
himself  doeth:  and  he  will  shew  him  greater  works 
than  these,  that  ye  may  marvel. 

For  as  the  Father  raiseth  up  the  dead  [ye  are  dead 
in  trespasses  and  sins]  [i.e.,  a  knowledge  of  matter]  and 
quickeneth  them;  even  so  the  Son  quickeneth  whom 
he  will.  For  the  Father  judgeth  no  man,  but  hath 
committed  all  judgment  unto  the  Son  [the  mind  of 
Christ  ^in  every  man] :  That  all  men  should  honour 
the  Son,  even  as  they  honour  the  Father.  He  that 
honoureth  not  the  Son  [spiritual  mind  and  its  ideas] 
honoureth  not  the  Father  which  hath  sent  him.  Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  you,  He  that  heareth  my  word,  and 
believeth  on  him  that  sent  me,  hath  everlasting  life, 
and  shall  not  come  into  condemnation;  but  is  passed 
from  death  [carnal  law]  unto  life  [spiritual  law]. 

John  12:  26,  44.     If  any  man  serve  me  [the  mind 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       241 

of  Christ  within],  let  him  follow  me;  and  where  I  am 
[in  that  consciousness],  there  shall  also  my  servant 
be :  if  any  man  serve  me,  him  will  my  Father  honour. 
Jesus  cried  and  said.  He  that  believeth  on  me,  be- 
lieveth  not  on  me,  but  on  him  that  sent  me  [God, 
who  gave  or  sent  His  only  Begotten  Son],  to  be  a 
part  of  each  man. 

John  8:  51,  54,  55.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  If  a  man  keep  my  saying,  he  shall  never  see 
death. 

If  I  honour  myself,  my  honour  is  nothing :  it  is  my 
Father  that  honoureth  me;  of  whom  ye  [carnal  minds] 
say,  that  he  is  your  God:  Yet  ye  [carnal  law  and 
minds]  have  not  known  him:  but  I  know  him:  and  if 
I  should  say,  I  know  him  not,  I  shall  be  a  liar  like 
unto  you:  but  I  know  him,  and  keep  his  saying 
[spiritual  law  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  law  of 
nature  or  man's  law]. 

Philippians  4:  13.  I  can  do  all  things  through 
Christ  [the  mind  of  Christ  within  me]  which  strength- 
eneth  me.     [Do  you  believe  this?] 

Deut.  10:  12.  And  now,  Israel,  what  doth  the 
Lord  thy  God  require  of  thee,  but  to  fear  the  Lord  thy 
God  [live  in  his  consciousness,  subject  to  his  law  and 
not  subject  to  the  carnal  law],  to  walk  in  all  his  ways, 
and  to  love  him,  and  to  serve  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart  [spiritual  mind]  and  with  all  thy  soul 
[carnal  mind  corrected]. 

I.  Chron.  16:  11.  Seek  the  Lord  and  his  strength 
[the  mind  of  Christ  within  you],  seek  his  face  con- 
tinually. 

I.  Chron.  16:  29.  Give  unto  the  Lord  the  glory 
due  unto  his  name :  bring  an  offering  [deny  your  body ; 
ofiEer  it  a  "living  sacrifice,  holy,  acceptable  unto  God 
16 


242  Christian  Science 

which  is  your  reasonable  service"]  and  come  before 
him:  worship  the  Lord  in  the  beauty  of  holiness. 
[In  spirit  and  in  truth  which  is  the  mind  of  Christ 
within  you.] 

Psalm  112:4.  Unto  the  upright  [minds  of  Christ] 
there  ariseth  light  in  the  darkness  [in  the  midst  of 
carnal  perception;  "underneath  are  the  everlasting 
arms"]. 

Psalm  119:92.  Unless  thy  law  had  been  my 
delights  [Christ  Mind],  I  should  then  have  perished 
in  mine  affliction. 

115.  Depart  from  me,  ye  evil  doers  [carnal 
thoughts];  for  I  will  keep  the  commandments  of  my 
God  [live  in  consciousness  of  God's  law  which  is  not 
the  inharmonious  "law  of  nature"  or  that  "wisdom 
which  is  foolishness  to  God"]. 

Isaiah  30:20,  21.  And  though  the  Lord  give 
you  the  bread  of  adversity  [consciousness  of  matter], 
and  the  water  of  affliction,  yet  shall  not  thy  teachers 
be  removed  into  a  corner  any  more,  hut  thine  eyes  shall 
see  thy  teachers  [you  shall  understand  your  minds]; 
And  thine  ears  shall  hear  a  word  behind  thee,  saying, 
This  is  the  way,  walk  ye  in  it,  when  ye  turn  to  the 
right  hand,  and  when  ye  turn  to  the  left.  [Perhaps 
this  is  a  prophecy  of  the  point  in  development  we  now 
have  reached.] 

Isaiah  55:2,  3.  Wherefore  do  ye  spend  money 
for  that  which  is  not  bread  ?  [material  things]  and  your 
labour  for  that  which  satisfieth  not?  hearken  diligently 
unto  me,  and  eat  ye  that  which  is  good  [by  every  word 
which  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God  shall  man 
live],  and  let  your  soul  delight  itself  in  fatness  [real 
spiritual  substance].  Incline  your  ear,  and  come  unto 
me:  hear,  and  your  soul  shall  live;  and  I  will  make  an 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       243 

everlasting  covenant  with  you  [the  only  begotten  son 
in  you,  the  mind  of  Christ],  even  the  sure  mercies  of 
David. 

Jeremiah  9:23,  24.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Let 
not  the  wise  man  glory  in  his  wisdom  [carnal  law 
which  is  not  God's  law],  neither  let  the  mighty  man 
glory  in  his  might,  let  not  the  rich  man  glory  in  his 
riches  [perception  of  material  things];  But  let  him 
that  glorieth  glory  in  this,  that  he  understandeth  and 
knoweth  me,  that  I  am  the  Lord  which  exercise  loving- 
kindness,  judgment,  and  righteousness,  in  the  earth: 
for  in  these  things  I  delight,  saith  the  Lord.  [Not  in 
suffering,  which  is  a  product  of  man's  own  law.] 

John  9:  1-3.  And  as  Jesus  passed  by,  he  saw 
a  man  which  was  blind  from  his  birth.  And  his 
disciples  asked  him,  saying,  Master,  who  did  sin,  this 
man,  or  his  parents,  that  he  was  born  blind?  Jesus 
answered.  Neither  hath  this  man  sinned,  nor  his 
parents:  but  that  the  works  of  God  should  be  made 
manifest  in  him.  [Possibly  a  hint  here  of  the  reason 
for  it  all,  and  a  hint  that  real  man  is  perfect  as  the 
Christ  Mind  and  all  our  present  impressions  merely 
false  consciousness.] 

John  12:46.  I  am  come  a  light  into  the  world 
[the  Christ  Mind],  that  whosoever  believeth  on  me 
should  not  abide  in  darkness  [a  sense  of  matter  and 
evil]. 

I.  Thessalonians  5 : 9.  For  God  hath  not  ap- 
pointed us  to  wrath  [mortal  sense],  but  to  obtain 
salvation  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  [the  mind  of 
Christ]. 

Philippians  2:13.  For  it  is  God  which  worketh 
in  you  both  to  will  and  to  do  of  his  good  pleasure. 

Romans     12:  i,     2.     I     beseech     you     therefore, 


244  Christian  Science 

brethren,  by  the  mercies  of  God,  that  ye  present  your 
bodies  a  living  sacrifice  [give  your  sense  of  matter], 
holy,  acceptable  unto  God,  which  is  your  reasonable 
service.  And  be  not  conformed  to  this  world:  but  be 
ye  transformed  by  the  renewing  of  your  mind,  that 
ye  may  prove  what  is  that  good,  and  acceptable,  and 
perfect  will  of  God. 

II.  Cor.  4:3,  4.  But  if  our  gospel  be  hid,  it  is  hid 
to  them  that  are  lost.  In  whom  the  god  of  this  world 
[mortal  sense]  hath  blinded  the  minds  of  them  which 
believe  not  [how  plainer  could  it  be  said  that  our 
present  inharmonious  laws  of  nature  are  not  God's 
laws?],  lest  the  light  of  the  glorious  gospel  of  Christ 
[spiritual  sense  and  mind],  who  is  the  image  of  God, 
should  shine  unto  them. 

Galatians  5:1,  16.  Stand  fast  therefore  in  the 
liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us  free,  and 
be  not  entangled  again  with  the  yoke  of  bondage 
[material  sense]. 

This  I  say  then,  Walk  in  the  Spirit  and  ye 
shallj  not  fulfil  the  lust  of  the  flesh  [the  tempter; 
when  man  is  tempted,  he  is  "led  away  of  his  own 
lust'']. 

Acts  17:28,  29.  For  in  him  we  live,  and  move, 
and  have  our  being;  Forasmuch  then  as  we  are  the 
offspring  of  God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  God- 
head is  like  unto  gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by 
art  and  man's  device  [i.e.,  the  body]. 

[Is  it  not  evident  that  the  Bible  teaches  that  there 
is  another  law,  and  that  what  we  have  called  the  law 
of  nature  is  not  the  law  of  God,  or  a  law  that  we  need 
be  subject  to  except  as  we  (mankind)  have  made 
ourselves  subject  to  it?] 

Matt.  6:22.      The   light  of  the  body  is  the  eye: 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       245 

if  therefore  thine  eye  be  single  [spiritual  alone],  thy 
whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light. 

Job  32 :  8.  But  there  is  a  spirit  [mind  of  Christ] 
in  man:  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth 
them  understanding. 

John  17:10.  And  all  mine  are  thine,  and  thine 
are  mine ;  and  I  am  glorified  in  them. 

John  10:10.  I  am  come  that  they  might  have 
life  [the  mind  of  Christ],  and  that  they  might  have  it 
more  abundantly. 

Romans  i :  20.  For  the  invisible  things  of  him 
from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being 
understood  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his 
eternal  power  and  Godhead ;  so  that  they  are  without 
excuse.     [Underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms.] 

Romans  8:1,  2.  There  is  therefore  now  no  con- 
demnation [no  carnal  law;  " this  ^*5  the  condemnation 
that  light  hath  come  into  the  world  and  men  loved 
darkness  rather  than  the  Hght "]  to  them  which  are  in 
Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh  [carnal 
law],  but  after  the  Spirit. 

For  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ 
Jesus  hath  made  me  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and 
death. 

[Is  it  not  evident  that  the  Bible  teaches  that  there  is 
another  law,  and  that  what  we  have  called  the  inhar- 
monious and  law  of  nature  is  not  the  law  of  God  or  a 
law  that  we  need  be  subject  to  except  as  we  (mankind) 
have  made  ourselves  subject  to  it?] 

Romans  8:5.  But  they  that  are  after  the  Spirit, 
the  things  of  the  Spirit. 

Romans  8:  6.  But  to  be  spiritually  minded 
[mind  of  Christ  in  you]  is  life,  and  peace. 

Romans  8 :  9.      But  ye  are  not  in  the  flesh,  but 


246  Christian  Science 

in  the  Spirit,  if  so  be  that  the  Spirit  of  God  dwell  in  you 
[mind  of  Christ  rule  you]. 

Psalm  8:  3-6.  When  I  consider  thy  heavens, 
the  work  of  thy  fingers,  the  moon  and  the  stars,  which 
thou  hast  ordained ; 

What  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him?  and  the 
son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him? 

For  thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels 
[real  man  not  carnal  man],  and  hast  crowned  him  with 
glory  and  honour. 

Thou  madest  him  to  have  dominion  over  the  works 
of  thy  hands;  thou  hast  put  all  things  under  his  feet. 

II.  Cor.  5:  1-4.  For  we  know  that,  if  our 
earthly  house  [carnal  mind  and  carnal  body]  of  this 
tabernacle  were  dissolved,  we  have  a  building  of  God, 
a  house  [God's  idea  or  body]  [perfect],  not  made  with 
hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens.  For  in  this  [knowledge 
of  matter,  carnal  body]  we  groan,  earnestly  desiring 
to  be  clothed  upon  with  our  house  which  is  from  heaven 
[God's  idea  or  body].  If  so  be  that  being  clothed  we 
shall  not  be  found  naked.  [Remember  Adam  and 
Eve  did  not  know  that  they  were  naked  till  they  had  a 
sense  of  matter.]  For  we  that  are  in  this  tabernacle 
do  groan,  being  burdened:  not  for  that  we  would  be 
unclothed,  but  clothed  upon,  that  mortality  might  be 
swallowed  up  of  life  [mortal  mind  swallowed  up  of 
spiritual  mind]. 

Galatians  5:  I.  Stand  fast  therefore  in  the 
liberty  [mind  of  Christ]  wherewith  Christ  hath  made 
us  free,  and  be  not  entangled  again  with  the  yoke  of 
bondage  [carnal  law]. 

I.  John  3:  13,  14.  Marvel  not,  my  brethren,  if 
the  world  hate  you.  We  know  that  we  have  passed 
from    death    [carnal    law]    unto   life    [spiritual   life], 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        247 

because  we  love  the  brethren.  He  that  loveth  not  his 
brother  abideth  in  death  [a  sense  of  evil.  Does  hatred 
come  from  anything  hut  a  false  sense  of  matter,  i.e.y 
separation  from  one  another  and  from  God?]. 

I.  John  4:7,  8.  Beloved,  let  us  love  one  another: 
for  love  is  of  God ;  and  everyone  that  loveth  is  born  of 
God,  and  knoweth  God.  He  that  loveth  not,  knoweth 
not  God;  for  God  is  love.  [If  God  is  Infinite  All  and 
God  is  Love  can  hatred  have  reality  ?] 

Rev.  II:  15.  And  the  seventh  angel  sounded; 
and  there  were  great  voices  in  heaven,  saying.  The 
kingdoms  of  this  world  [carnal  law]  are  become  the 
kingdoms  of  our  Lord  [spiritual  law],  and  of  his 
Christ  [mind];  and  he  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever, 
[in  man]  [the  consciousness  of  men]. 

Rev.  21:2-4,  7,  23,  24.  And  I  John  saw  the 
holy  city,  new  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from  God  out 
of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her 
husband. 

And  I  heard  a  great  voice  out  of  heaven  saying. 
Behold,  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men  [the  habita- 
tion of  the  Christ  mind],  and  he  will  dwell  with  them, 
and  they  shall  be  his  people,  and  God  himself  shall  be 
with  them,  and  be  their  God. 

And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes ; 
and  there  shall  be  no  more  death  [sense  of  death  and 
matter,  but  continuous  consciousness  of  God],  neither 
sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more 
pain;  for  the  former  things  are  passed  away  [carnal 
law]. 

He  that  overcometh  shall  inherit  all  things;  and  I 
will  be  his  God,  and  he  shall  be  my  son  [mind  of 
Christ]. 

23.     And  the  city  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither 


248  Christian  Science 

of  the  moon,  to  shine  in  it:  for  the  glory  of  God  did 
lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof. 

24.  And  the  nations  of  them  which  are  saved  shall 
walk  in  the  light  of  it  [knowledge  of  God  through  the 
Christ  Mind];  and  the  kings  of  the  earth  do  bring 
their  glory  and  honour  into  it. 

Rev.  12:  10,  II.  And  I  heard  a  loud  voice 
saying  in  heaven,  Now  is  come  salvation,  and  strength, 
and  the  kingdom  of  our  God,  and  the  power  of  his 
Christ  [mind] :  for  the  accuser  of  our  brethren  [carnal 
mind]  is  cast  down,  which  accused  them  before  our 
God  day  and  night. 

II.  And  they  [minds  of  Christ]  overcame  him 
[carnal  mind]  by  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  [by  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  meaning  of  Jesus'  death],  and  by  the  word 
of  their  testimony ;  and  they  loved  not  their  lives  unto 
the  death  [sense  of  matter]. 

Rev.  22:  3,  4,  5,  14,  17.  And  there  shall  be  no 
more  curse  [carnal  law] :  but  the  throne  of  God  and  of 
the  Lamb  shall  be  in  it;  and  his  servants  shall  serve 
him: 

4.  And  they  shall  see  his  face:  and  his  name  shall 
be  in  their  foreheads. 

5.  And  there  shall  be  no  night  there  [no  darkness 
because  no  matter];  and  they  need  no  candle,  neither 
light  of  the  sun ;  for  the  Lord  God  giveth  them  light:  and 
they  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever. 

14.  Blessed  are  they  that  do  his  commandments, 
that  they  may  have  right  to  the  tree  of  life  [Christ 
Mind  and  spiritual  consciousness],  and  may  enter  in 
through  the  gates  into  the  city. 

17.  And  the  Spirit  and  the  bride  say.  Come. 
And  let  him  that  heareth  say,  Come.  And  let  him 
that    is   athirst,    come.     And    whosoever    will,    let 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        249 

him  take  the  water  of  life  freely  [spiritual  law  open 
to  all]. 

Jeremiah  17:  7.  Blessed  is  the  man  that  trust- 
eth  in  the  Lord  [mind  of  Christ  within],  and  whose  hope 
the  Lord  is. 

Deut.  5:  24.  And  ye  said,  Behold,  the  Lord  our 
God  hath  shewed  us  his  glory  and  his  greatness,  and 
we  have  heard  his  voice  out  of  the  midst  of  the  fire; 
we  have  seen  this  day  that  God  doth  talk  with  man, 
and  he  liveth  [is  under  spiritual  law:  the  rule  of  carnal 
law  is  death]. 

Psalm  46:  1-5.  God  is  our  refuge  and  strength,  a 
very  present  help  in  trouble.  Therefore  will  not  we 
fear,  though  the  earth  be  removed  [mortal  sense 
lost],  and  though  the  mountains  be  carried  into  the 
midst  of  the  sea ;  Though  the  waters  thereof  roar  and 
be  troubled,  though  the  mountains  shake  with  the 
swelling  thereof.  There  is  a  river  [spiritual  conscious- 
ness], the  streams  whereof  shall  make  glad  the  city  of 
God,  the  holy  place  of  the  tabernacles  of  the  Most 
High.  God  is  in  the  midst  of  her;  she  shall  not  be 
moved ;  God  shall  help  her,  and  that  right  early. 

Luke  12:  6,  7.  Are  not  five  sparrows  sold  for 
two  farthings,  and  not  one  of  them  is  forgotten  before 
God? 

But  even  the  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  num- 
bered. Fear  not  therefore :  ye  are  of  more  value  than 
many  sparrows. 

L  Chronicles  28:  9.  For  the  Lord  searcheth  all 
hearts,  and  understandeth  all  the  imaginations  of  the 
thoughts  [of  true  thoughts];  if  thou  seek  him  [the 
mind  of  Christ  and  his  law],  he  will  be  found  of  thee; 
but  if  thou  forsake  him,  he  will  cast  thee  off  for  ever 
[as  long  as  you  forsake  him  and  live  in  false  conscious- 


250  Christian  Science 

ness,  and  this  may  seem  to  mortal  sense  to  last  for- 
ever]. 

20.  And  David  said  to  Solomon  his  son,  Be  strong 
and  of  good  courage,  and  do  it:  fear  not,  nor  be  dis- 
mayed, for  the  Lord  God,  even  my  God,  will  be  with 
thee;  he  will  not  fail  thee,  nor  forsake  thee,  until  thou 
hast  finished  all  the  work  for  the  service  of  the  house 
of  the  Lord. 

Mark  9:  2-4.  And  after  six  days  Jesus  taketh 
with  him  Peter,  and  James,  and  John,  and  leadeth 
them  up  into  a  high  mountain  apart  by  themselves: 
and  he  was  transfigured  before  them.  And  his  rai- 
ment became  shining,  exceeding  white  as  snow;  so  as 
no  fuller  on  earth  can  white  them.  And  there  ap- 
peared unto  them  Elias  with  Moses:  and  [continuity 
of  life]  they  were  talking  with  Jesus. 

Luke  6:  45.  A  good  man  [spiritual  mind]  out 
of  the  good  treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that 
which  is  good ;  and  an  evil  man  [carnal  mind]  out  of  the 
evil  treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that  which  is 
evil;  for  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  his  mouth 
speaketh. 

[Where  your  treasure  is  there  will  your  heart  be 
also.] 

[Please  try  to  interpret  the  three  ensuing  verses  (i)  on 
the  ordinarily  accepted  theory  of  consciousness  and  {2) 
on  the  theory  of  consciousness  set  forth  in  this  hook.  Do 
this  for  yourself  and  see  into  which  theory  the  words  of 
Jesus  quoted  fit  the  best:] 

John  9:  39,  40,  41.  And  Jesus  said.  For  judg- 
ment I  am  come  into  this  world,  that  they  which  see 
not  might  see ;  and  that  they  which  see  might  be  made 
blind. 

And  some  of  the  Pharisees  which  were  with  him 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        251 

heard  these  words,  and  said  unto  him,  Are  we  blind 
also? 

Jesus  said  unto  them,  If  ye  were  blind,  ye  should 
have  no  sin;  hut  now  ye  say,  we  see;  therefore  your 

SIN  REMAINETH. 

Isaiah  61:  i.  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is 
upon  me;  because  the  Lord  hath  anointed  me  to 
preach  good  tidings  unto  the  meek;  he  hath  sent  me 
to  bind  up  the  brokenhearted,  to  proclaim  liberty  to 
the  captives,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them 
that  are  bound  [carnal  mind]. 

II.  Cor.  5:4.  For  we  that  are  in  this  tabernacle 
do  groan,  being  burdened:  not  for  that  we  would  be 
unclothed,  but  clothed  upon,  that  mortality  might  be 
swallowed  up  of  life. 

Isaiah  52:  13,  15.  Behold,  my  servant  shall  deal 
prudently,  he  shall  be  exalted  and  extolled,  and  be 
very  high. 

So  shall  he  sprinkle  many  nations;  the  kings  shall 
shut  their  mouths  at  him:  for  that  which  had  not 
been  told  them  shall  they  see;  and  that  which  they 
had  not  heard  shall  they  consider  [he  that  hath  ears 
to  hear]. 

Psalms  17:  15.  And  where  is  now  my  hope? 
as  for  my  hope,  who  shall  see  it  ? 

Eph.  i:  3-6.  Blessed  be  the  God  and  Father 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  blessed  us  with 
all  spiritual  blessings  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ: 

According  as  he  hath  chosen  us  in  him  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world,  that  we  should  be  holy  and 
without  blame  before  him  in  love : 

Having  predestinated  us  [spiritual  mind]  unto  the 
adoption  of  children  by  Jesus  Christ  to  himself, 
according  to  the  good  pleasure  of  his  will. 


252  Christian  Science 

To  the  praise  of  the  glory  of  his  grace,  wherein  he 
hath  made  us  accepted  in  the  beloved. 

Rev.  3:  II,  12.  Behold,  I  come  quickly:  hold 
that  fast  which  thou  hast,  that  no  man  take  thy  crown. 

Him  that  overcometh  will  I  make  a  pillar  in  the 
temple  of  my  God,  and  he  shall  go  no  more  out :  and 
I  will  write  upon  him  the  name  of  my  God,  and  the 
name  of  the  city  of  my  God,  which  is  new  Jerusalem, 
which  Cometh  dowm  out  of  heaven  from  my  God: 
and  I  will  write  upon  him  my  new  name. 


MORTAL  MIND  AND  THE  DEVIL. 

Note:  The  reader  is  asked  to  attempt  a  reconciliation  of  the 
verses  under  this  heading  with  those  under  the  heading  "Immor- 
tal Mind. "  If  the  Bible  be  an  inspired  volume  surely  there  must 
be  some  at-one-ment  for  such  conflicting  statements. 

Gen.  5:  I,  3,  5.  This  is  the  book  of  the  genera- 
tions of  Adam.  In  the  day  that  God  created  man,  in 
the  Hkeness  of  God  made  he  him; 

And  Adam  lived  an  hundred  and  thirty  years,  and 
begat  a  son  in  his  own  likeness  [carnal  mind],  after  his 
image;  and  called  his  name  Seth; 

And  all  the  days  that  Adam  lived  were  nine  hundred 
and  thirty  years;  and  he  died. 

;  Eccl.  3:  18,  20.  I  said  in  mine  heart  concerning 
the  estate  of  the  sons  of  men,  that  God  might  manifest 
them,  and  that  they  might  see  that  they  themselves 
are  beasts. 

All  go  unto  one  place:  all  are  of  the  dust,  and  all 
turn  to  dust  again. 

John  3:  5-7.  Jesus  answered,  Verily,  verily,  I 
say  unto  thee,  Except  a  man  be  born  of  water  and 
of  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh;  and  that 
which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit. 

Marvel  not  that  I  said  unto  thee,  Ye  must  be  born 
again. 

253 


254  Christian  Science 

Romans  8:  5,  6,  8.  For  they  that  are  after  the 
flesh  [carnal  minds]  do  mind  the  things  of  the  flesh ; 

For  to  be  carnally  minded  is  death; 

So  then  they  that  are  in  the  flesh  [in  the  sense  of 
matter]  cannot  please  God  [because  the  carnal  law  is 
not  God's  law]. 

John  15:  23.  He  [carnal  mind]  that  hateth  me 
[enmity  to  God]  hateth  my  Father  also. 

John  i:  1-14.  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word 
[ideas],  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word 
was  God.  The  same  was  in  the  beginning  with  God. 
All  things  were  made  by  him,  and  without  him  was  not 
anything  made  that  was  made.  In  him  was  life 
[goodness] ;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men.  And  the 
light  shineth  in  darkness  [a  sense  of  matter] ;  and  the 
darkness  comprehended  it  not.  There  was  a  man 
sent  from  God,  whose  name  was  John.  The  same 
came  for  a  witness,  to  bear  witness  of  the  Light,  that  all 
men  through  him  might  believe.  He  was  not  that 
Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear  witness  of  that  Light. 
That  was  the  true  Light,  which  lighteth  every  man 
that  Cometh  into  the  world  [the  Mind  of  Christ,  the 
only  begotten  Son].  He  was  in  the  world,  and  the 
world  was  made  by  him,  and  the  world  knew  him 
not.  He  came  unto  his  own,  and  his  own  received 
him  not.  But  as  many  as  received  him,  to  them  gave 
he  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God  [to  live  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  mind  of  Christ],  even  to  them  that 
believe  on  his  name.  Which  were  born,  not  of  blood, 
nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  men 
\i.e.,  under  the  carnal  law,  so-called  law  made  by  man. 
Sounds  like  a  method  of  birth  unknown  to-day,  doesn't 
it?],  but  by  God.  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh 
[had  the  same  sense  of  matter],  and  dwelt  among  us, 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        255 

(and  we  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only 
begotten  of  the  Father),  full  of  grace  and  truth. 

Job  14:  1-4.  Man  that  is  born  of  woman  [carnal 
mind]  is  of  few  days,  and  full  of  trouble  [mortal  man]. 

He  Cometh  forth  like  a  flower,  and  is  cut  down:  he 
fleeth  also  as  a  shadow,  and  continueth  not. 

And  dost  thou  open  thine  eyes  upon  such  a  one, 
and  bringest  me  into  judgment  with  thee  ? 

Who  can  bring  a  clean  thing  out  of  an  unclean?  not 
one  [carnal  mind  and  carnal  law  so  long  as  they 
remain  are  an  illusion  of  uncleanness]. 

Luke  6:  43,  44,  45.  For  a  good  tree  [spiritual 
mind]  bringeth  not  forth  corrupt  fruit  [carnal  law]; 
neither  doth  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit 
[spiritual  law].  For  every  tree  is  known  by  his  own 
fruit.  For  of  thorns  men  [carnal  mind]  do  not  gather 
figs,  nor  of  a  bramble  bush  gather  they  grapes.  A 
good  man  [the  mind  in  Christ  Jesus]  out  of  the  good 
treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that  which  is  good ; 
and  an  evil  man  [the  carnal  mind]  out  of  the  evil 
treasure  [perception  of  matter]  of  his  heart  bringeth 
forth  that  which  is  evil;  for  of  the  abundance  of  the 
heart  his  mouth  speaketh.  [Faith  which  is  the  sub- 
stance of  things  hoped  for  exercised  in  the  wrong 
direction.] 

,  Job  15:  22.  He  believeth  not  that  he  shall  return 
out  of  darkness  [a  perception  of  matter],  and  he  is 
waited  for  of  the  sword  [suffering  of  sense]. 
,  Matt.  12:  25,  28,  29.  Every  kingdom  [man] 
divided  against  itself  [the  two  minds  of  man  warring 
with  one  another]  is  brought  to  desolation ;  and  every 
city  or  house  divided  against  itself  shall  not  stand: 
And  if  Satan  cast  out  Satan,  he  is  divided  against 
himself;  how  shall  then  his  kingdom  stand?     And  if  I 


256  Christian  Science 

by  Beelzebub  cast  out  devils,  by  whom  do  your 
children  cast  them  out?  therefore  they  shall  be  your 
judges.  But  if  I  cast  out  devils  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 
then  the  kingdom  of  God  is  come  unto  you.  Or  else, 
how  can  one  enter  into  a  strong  man's  [carnal  mind] 
house,  and  spoil  his  goods,  except  he  first  bind  the 
strong  man?  and  then  he  will  spoil  his  house. 

Isaiah  9:2.  The  people  that  walked  in  darkness 
have  seen  a  great  light :  they  that  dwell  in  the  land  of 
the  shadow  of  death  [our  present  consciousness],  upon 
them  hath  the  light  shined. 

Gen.  32:  24-28.  And  Jacob  was  left  alone; 
and  there  wrestled  a  man  [struggle  between  carnal 
and  spiritual  man]  with  him  until  the  breaking  of 
the  day.  And  when  he  saw  that  he  prevailed  not 
against  him,  he  touched  the  hollow  of  his  thigh:  and 
the  hollow  of  Jacob's  thigh  was  out  of  joint,  as  he 
wrestled  with  him.  And  he  said.  Let  me  go,  for  the 
day  breaketh.  And  he  said,  I  will  not  let  thee  go, 
except  thou  bless  me.  And  he  said  unto  him,  What 
is  thy  name?  And  he  said,  Jacob.  And  he  said. 
Thy  name  shall  be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but  Israel : 
for  as  a  prince  hast  thou  power  with  God  and  with 
men,  and  hast  prevailed. 

Job  17:  14.  I  have  said  to  corruption  [carnal 
mind].  Thou  art  my  father:  to  the  worm,  Thou  art 
my  mother,  and  my  sister  [carnal  law:  doctrine  of 
evolution — seems  to  fit  the  biological  theory  of  man's 
development  pretty  closely,  doesn't  it?]. 

Job  18:  21.  Surely  such  are  the  dwellings  [car- 
nal minds]  of  the  wicked,  and  this  is  the  place  of  him 
THAT  KNOWETH  NOT  GOD  [camal  law  is  not  known  to 
God  and  He  has  nothing  to  do  with  it]. 

Job    19:    7,   8.      Behold,    I    cry    out    of    wrong 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        257 

[carnal  mind],  but  i  am  not  heard  [a  belief  in  carnal 
law  meets  no  response  of  God].  I  cry  aloud,  but 
there  is  no  judgment. 

He  hath  fenced  up  my  way  that  I  cannot  pass,  and 
he  hath  set  darkness  in  my  paths  ["he" — carnal 
mind,  not  God]. 

Isaiah  42:  6,  7.  I  the  Lord  have  called  thee  in 
righteousness  [the  mind  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus], 
and  will  hold  thine  hand,  and  will  keep  thee,  and  will 
give  thee  for  a  covenant  of  the  people,  for  a  light  of 
the  Gentiles;  To  open  the  blind  eyes,  to  bring  out  the 
prisoners  from  the  prison  [the  carnal  mind],  and  them 
that  sit  in  darkness  [a  sense  of  matter]  out  of  the 
prison  house  [the  carnal  mind]. 

II.  Thessalonians  2:  7-10.  For  the  mystery  of 
iniquity  doth  already  work:  only  he  who  now  letteth 
will  let  [the  carnal  mind,  false  mind]  until  he  be  taken 
out  of  the  way.  [Absorbed  in  the  true  consciousness 
of  the  mind  of  Christ  and  freed  from  the  law  of  sin 
and  death.]  And  then  shall  that  Wicked  [carnal 
mind,  false  mind,  the  one  evil]  be  revealed,  whom  the 
Lord  shall  consume  with  the  spirit  of  his  mouth  [the 
mind  of  Christ],  and  shall  destroy  with  the  brightness 
of  his  coming:  Even  him,  whose  coming  is  after  the 
working  of  Satan  [carnal  mind,  the  ''wonders"  of  the 
law  of  sin  and  death]  with  all  powers  and  signs  and 
lying  wonders,  And  with  all  deceivableness  of  un- 
righteousness in  them  that  perish;  because  they 
received  not  the  love  of  the  truth,  that  they  might  be 
saved.  ^ 

Jeremiah  5:  21.  Hear  now  this,  0  foolish  peophy 
and  without  understanding;  which  have  eyes,  and  see  not; 
which  have  ears,  and  hear  not. 

'  See  previous  note  about  destruction  of  evil  qualities. 

17 


258  Christian  Science 

Jeremiah  17:  9.  The  heart  [carnal  mind]  is  de- 
ceitful above  all  things,  and  desperately  wicked:  who 
can  know  it  ? 

Daniel  3:17.  If  it  be  so,  our  God  whom  we 
serve  is  able  to  deliver  us  from  the  burning  fiery 
furnace  [mortal  sense],  and  he  will  deliver  us  out  of 
thine  hand,  0  king. 

Isaiah  30:  20,  21.  And  though  the  Lord  give  you 
the  bread  of  adversity  [consciousness  of  matter — 
why,  I  do  not  know],  and  the  water  of  affliction,  yet 
shall  not  thy  teachers  be  removed  into  a  corner  any 
more,  but  thine  eyes  shall  see  thy  teachers  [the  Mind 
of  Christ  will  become  more  and  more  in  consciousness]. 

And  thine  ears  shall  hear  a  word  behind  thee,  saying, 
This  is  the  way,  walk  ye  in  it,  when  ye  turn  to  the 
right  hand,  and  when  ye  turn  to  the  left  [a  picture  of 
redemption  through  gradually  coming  to  live  with  the 
Christ  Mind]. 

Isaiah  49 :  8,  9.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  In  an  ac- 
ceptable time  have  I  heard  thee,  and  in  a  day  of 
salvation  have  I  helped  thee :  and  I  will  preserve  thee, 
and  give  thee  for  a  covenant  of  the  people,  to  estab- 
lish the  earth,  to  cause  to  inherit  the  desolate  heritages 
[refill  the  sense  of  matter  with  truth];  That  thou 
mayest  say  to  the  prisoners  [carnal  mind],  Go  forth; 
to  them  that  are  in  darkness  [sense  of  evil].  Shew 
yourselves  [become  one  with  the  mind  of  Christ]. 
They  shall  feed  in  the  ways,  and  their  pastures  shall  be 
in  all  high  places. 

Jeremiah  6:  16.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Stand  ye 
in  the  ways,  and  see,  and  ask  for  the  old  paths 
[spiritual  mind],  where  is  the  good  way,  and  walk 
therein,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  for  your  souls.  But 
they  said,  We  will  not  walk  therein. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        259 

Daniel  6:  22.  My  God  hath  sent  his  angel,  and 
hath  shut  the  lions*  mouths  [mortal  sense],  that  they 
have  not  hurt  me :  forasmuch  as  before  him  innocency 
was  found  in  me ;  and  also  before  thee,  0  king,  have  I 
done  no  hurt. 

Daniel  4:  35.  All  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth 
are  reputed  as  nothing  [carnal  minds,  bodies  of 
matter — nothing] :  and  he  doeth  according  to  his  will 
in  the  army  of  heaven,  and  among  the  inhabitants  of 
the  earth:  and  none  can  stay  his  hand,  or  say  unto 
him,  What  doest  thou?^ 

Hosea  6:  i,  2.  Come,  and  let  us  return  unto  the 
Lord:  for  he  hath  torn  [we  suffer  when  we  live  in 
darkness,  "this  is  the  condemnation "],  and  he  will  heal 
us;  he  hath  smitten,  and  he  will  bind  us  up.  After 
two  days  will  he  revive  us:  in  the  third  day  he  will 
raise  us  up,  and  we  shall  live  in  his  sight. 

Matt.  25:  14,  15,  29.  The  kingdom  of  heaven 
[life,  real  life]  is  as  a  man  travelling  into  a  far  country, 
who  called  his  own  servants,  and  delivered  unto  them 
his  goods. 

And  unto  one  he  gave  five  talents,  to  another  two, 
and  to  another  one;  to  every  man  according  to  his 
several  ability;  and  straightway  took  his  journey. 

For  unto  everyone  that  hath  [spiritual  consciousness 
and  law]  shall  be  given,  and  he  shall  have  abundance: 
but  from  him  that  hath  not  ["not  thought"]  [mortal 

'  It  appears  here  and  elsewhere  in  the  Bible,  as  though 
in  speaking  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  the  Scripture  was 
referring  to  the  earthly  qualities  of  individual  men  and  mankind 
in  general;  in  speaking  of  the  army  of  heaven,  of  the  spiritual 
qualities,  not  individuals  themselves.  The  same  construction 
can  be  placed  on  nearly  every  place  in  the  Bible  where  it  speaks 
of  the  destruction  of  evil  and  those  who  are  evil. 


26o  Christian  Science 

consciousness  and  law]  shall  be  taken  away  even  that 
which  he  hath  [nothing.  Sounds  more  just  than  the 
old  interpretation,  does  it  not?]. 

Habakkuk  i:  12,  13.  Art  thou  not  from  ever- 
lasting, 0  Lord  my  God,  mine  Holy  One?  We  shall 
not  die  [consciousness  of  continuity  of  life].  0  Lord, 
thou  hast  ordained  them  for  judgment;  and,  O 
Mighty  God,  thou  hast  established  them  for  correc- 
tion. Thou  art  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  evil,  and 
canst  not  look  on  iniquity:  wherefore  lookest  thou 
upon  them  that  deal  treacherously,  and  holdest  thy 
tongue  when  the  wicked  devoureth  [the  problem  of 
carnal  man  existing  along  with]  the  man  that  is  more 
righteous  than  he?  [God  not  understood  by  this  quo- 
tation. The  same  problem  we  have  to-day  stated 
in  the  same  paragraph  with  the  statement  of  a  "  God 
without  iniquity."]  [In  him  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being.  Can  a  good  tree  bring  forth  evil 
fruit?] 

Luke  6:  45.  A  good  man  [spiritual  mind]  out 
of  the  good  treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that 
which  is  good ;  and  an  evil  man  out  of  the  evil  treasure 
of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that  which  is  evil :  for  of  the 
abundance  of  the  heart  his  mouth  speaketh.  [Faith 
brings  into  substance  the  law  of  sin  and  death  or  the 
spiritual  law  according  to  its  use.] 

Luke  21:  33.  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass 
away  [a  consciousness  of  material  things  shall  pass 
away] ;  but  my  words  shall  net  pass  away.  [The  ideas 
of  God  shall  live  forever,  by  every  word  which  pro- 
ceedeth  from  the  mouth  of  God  shall  man  live.] 

Ecc.  12:  3.  In  the  day  when  the  keepers  of  the 
house  shall  tremble,  and  the  strong  men  [mortal, 
carnal  mind]  shall  bow  themselves,  and  the  grinders 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       261 

cease  because  they  are  few,  and  those  that  look  out  of 
the  windows  be  darkened. 

John  8:  51,  54,  55.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  If  a  man  keep  my  saying,  he  shall  never  see  death. 

If  I  honour  myself,  my  honour  is  nothing :  it  is  my 
Father  that  honoureth  me ;  of  whom  ye  [carnal  minds] 
say,  that  he  is  your  God :  Yet  ye  [carnal  law  and  minds] 
have  not  known  him ;  but  I  know  him :  and  if  I  should 
say,  I  know  him  not,  I  shall  be  a  liar  like  unto  you: 
but  I  know  him,  and  keep  his  saying  [spiritual  law 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  law  of  nature  or 
man's  law]. 

Exodus  34:  12-14.  Take  heed  to  thyself,  lest 
thou  make  a  covenant  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  land 
whither  thou  goest  [with  the  carnal  mind],  lest  it  be 
for  a  snare  in  the  midst  of  thee : 

But  ye  shall  destroy  their  altars  [carnal  law],  break 
their  images,  and  cut  down  their  groves. 

For  thou  shalt  worship  no  other  god :  for  the  Lord, 
whose  name  is  Jealous,  is  a  jealous  God.  [In  the  Old 
Testament  these  allusions  to  a  God  who  has  human 
qualities  have  crept  in  in  many  places  and  seem  to  be 
the  result  of  the  conception  of  Him  which  was  then 
prevalent.  They  certainly  conflict  with  other  pas- 
sages in  which  a  different  idea  of  Him  is  given.] 

Psalm  44:  20,  21.  If  we  have  forgotten  the 
name  of  our  God,  or  stretched  out  our  hands  to  a 
strange  god  [mortal  sense];  Shall  not  God  search 
this  out?  for  he  knoweth  the  secrets  of  the  heart. 

Mark  11,  13-14,  20.  And  seeing  a  fig  tree  afar 
off  having  leaves,  he  came,  if  haply  he  might  find  any- 
thing thereon:  and  when  he  came  to  it,  he  found 
nothing  but  leaves  [material] ;  for  the  time  of  figs  was 
not  yet  [of  a  realization  of  man's  true  nature,  its  real 


262  Christian  Science 

fruit.]  And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  it,  No  man 
eat  fruit  of  thee  hereafter  for  ever  [a  sense  of  matter]. 
And  his  disciples  heard  it. 

And  in  the  morning,  as  they  passed  by,  they  saw  the 
fig  tree  dried  up  from  the  roots. 

II.  Cor.  3:  15.  But  even  unto  this  day,  when 
Moses  is  read,  the  vail  [a  sense  of  matter  so  that  they 
do  not  perceive  the  spiritual  meaning  of  the  Scripture] 
is  upon  their  heart. 

John  8:  23,  24,  43,  44,  45.  And  he  said  unto 
them,  Ye  are  from  beneath  [mortal  sense] ;  I  am  from 
above  [mind  of  Christ] :  ye  are  of  this  world ;  I  am  not 
of  this  world.  I  said  therefore  unto  you,  that  ye 
shall  die  in  your  sins :  for  if  ye  believe  not  that  I  am  he 
[and  vivify  your  mind  which  is  of  Christ],  ye  shall  die 
in  your  sins  [till  you  do  you  are  dead  in  trespasses 
and  sins].  Why  do  ye  not  understand  my  speech?  [car- 
nal mind  cannot  understand  God];  even  because  ye 
cannot  hear  my  word.  Ye  are  of  your  father  the 
devil  [carnal  mind],  and  the  lusts  of  your  father  ye 
will  do :  he  was  a  murderer  from  the  beginning,  and 
abode  not  in  the  truth,  because  there  is  no  truth  in 
him.  When  he  speaketh  a  lie,  he  speaketh  of  his  own : 
for  he  is  a  liar,  and  the  father  of  it  [carnal  mind  a 
lie].  And  because  I  tell  you  the  truth,  ye  believe  me 
not. 

Ephesians4:  22.  That  ye  put  off  concerning  the 
former  conversation  the  old  man  [carnal  man],  which 
is  corrupt  according  to  the  deceitful  lusts. 

Revelation  2:  5.  Remember  therefore  from 
whence  thou  art  fallen,  and  repent,  and  do  the  first 
works  [spiritual] ;  or  else  I  will  come  unto  thee  quickly, 
and  will  remove  thy  candlestick  out  of  his  place, 
except  thou  repent. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       263 

Jeremiah  17:  5.  Thus  saith  the  Lord;  Cursed  be 
the  man  that  trusteth  in  man  [carnal  mind],  and 
maketh  flesh  his  arm,  and  whose  heart  departeth 
from  the  Lord,  [from  the  spiritual  law]. 

Romans  i:  25.  Who  changed  the  truth  of  God 
into  a  lie  [by  injecting  a  false  interpretation  of  God's 
plan  into  that  plan  by  exercising  faith  in  the  direction 
of  the  perception  of  matter],  and  worshipped  and 
served  the  creature  [the  body  or  carnal  mind],  more 
than  the  Creator  [the  true  mind  of  man],  who  is 
blessed  for  ever. 

John  8:  34,  35,  36.  Jesus  answered  them, 
Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Whosoever  committeth 
sin  [i.e.,  the  carnal  mind  of  man]  is  the  servant  of  sin. 

And  the  servant  [carnal  mind  of  man]  abideth  not 
in  the  house  for  ever :  but  the  Son  [the  mind  of  Christ 
in  man]  abideth  ever. 

If  the  Son  therefore  shall  make  you  free  [from  the 
perception  of  sin  by  the  carnal  mind  or  objective  mind 
of  man],  ye  shall  be  free  indeed. 

Romans  i:  23.  And  changed  the  glory  of  the 
uncorruptible  God  into  an  image  [carnal  mind,  the 
body]  made  like  to  corruptible  man,  and  to  birds,  and 
fourfooted  beasts,  and  creeping  things. 

Romans  6:  16.  Know  ye  not,  that  to  whom  ye 
yield  yourselves  servants  to  obey,  his  servants  ye  are 
to  whom  ye  obey;  whether  of  sin  [carnal  mind]  unto 
death,  or  of  obedience  unto  righteousness  [spiritual 
mind]  ? 

Romans  13:  11.  And  that,  knowing  the  time, 
that  now  it  is  high  time  to  awake  out  of  sleep  [from 
a  sense  of  material  things]:  for  now  is  our  salvation 
nearer  than  when  we  believed. 

IL  Cor.  4:  3,  4.     But  if  ovir  gospel  be  hid,  it  is  hid 


264  Christian  Science 

to  them  that  are  lost :  In  whom  the  god  of  this  world 
[mortal  sense]  hath  blinded  the  minds  of  them  which 
believe  not  [how  plainer  could  it  be  said  that  our 
present  inharmonious  laws  of  nature  are  not  God's 
laws?],  lest  the  light  of  the  glorious  gospel  of  Christ 
[spiritual  sense  and  mind],  who  is  the  image  of  God, 
should  shine  unto  them. 

Acts  17:  28,  29.  For  in  him  we  live,  and  move, 
and  have  our  being:  Forasmuch  then  as  we  are  the 
offspring  of  God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  God- 
head is  like  unto  gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by 
art  and  man's  device  [i.e.  the  carnal  law  and  man's 
idea  of  body  (material)].  [In  Him  is  no  darkness  at 
all.] 

John  5:  30.  I  can  of  mine  own  self  do  nothing: 
as  I  hear  [from  the  spiritual  law  of  God],  I  judge:  and 
my  judgment  is  just:  because  I  seek  not  mine  own 
will,  but  the  will  of  the  Father  which  hath  sent  me. 
If  I  bear  witness  of  myself  [carnal  mind  alone  testifies 
of  itself  alone;  God  testifies  of  the  spiritual  mind  and 
law],  my  witness  is  not  true. 

Romans  12:  i,  2.  I  beseech  you  therefore, 
brethren,  by  the  mercies  of  God,  that  ye  present  your 
bodies  [your  sense  of  matter]  a  living  sacrifice,  holy, 
acceptable  unto  God,  which  is  your  reasonable  service. 
And  be  not  conformed  to  this  world :  but  be  ye  trans- 
formed by  the  renewing  of  your  mind,  that  ye  may 
prove  what  is  that  good,  and  acceptable,  and  perfect 
will  of  God  [no  evil  in  that  law]. 

Habakkuk  2:  18,  19.  What  profiteth  the  graven 
image  that  the  maker  thereof  hath  graven  it;  the 
molten  image,  and  a  teacher  of  lies,  that  the  maker  of 
his  work  trusteth  therein,  to  make  dumb  idols 
[bodies  made  by  men,  according  to  biological  theory]  ? 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       265 

Woe  unto  him  that  saith  to  the  wood,  Awake;  to 
the  dumb  stone,  Arise,  it  shall  teach!  Behold,  it  is 
laid  over  with  gold  and  silver,  and  there  is  no  breath 
at  all  in  the  midst  of  it. 

Romans  i :  23.  And  changed  the  glory  of  the  un- 
corruptible God  into  an  image  made  like  to  corruptible 
man,  and  to  birds,  and  fourfooted  beasts,  and  creeping 
things  [bodies  made  by  man — biological  theory]. 

Hebrews  3:  4.  For  every  house  is  builded  by 
some  man;  but  he  that  built  all  things  is  God.  [Have 
you  noticed  how  often  in  the  Bible  "temple"  or 
**  house"  is  used  to  signify  the  body?] 

II.  Cor.  5:  4,  6,  8.  For  we  that  are  in  this 
tabernacle  do  groan,  being  burdened:  not  for  that  we 
would  be  unclothed,  but  clothed  upon,  that  mortality 
might  be  swallowed  up  of  life  [consciousness]. 

Therefore  we  are  always  confident,  knowing  that, 
whilst  we  are  at  home  in  the  body,  we  are  absent  from 
the  Lord  [consciousness]. 

We  are  confident,  I  say,  and  willing  rather  to  be 
absent  from  the  body  and  to  be  present  with  the  Lord 
[consciousness]. 

Romans  8:  12,  13.  Therefore,  brethren,  we  are 
debtors,  not  to  the  flesh,  to  live  after  the  flesh. 

For  if  ye  live  after  the  flesh,  ye  shall  die:  but  if  ye 
through  the  Spirit  do  mortify  the  deeds  of  the  body, 
ye  shall  live. 

II.  Cor.  5:  1-4.  For  we  know  that,  if  our  earthly 
house  [carnal  mind  and  carnal  body]  of  this  taber- 
nacle were  dissolved,  we  have  a  building  of  God,  a 
house  [God's  idea  or  body  (perfect)]  not  made  with 
hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens.  For  in  this  [knowledge 
of  matter,  carnal  body]  we  groan,  earnestly  desiring 
to  be  clothed  upon  with  oui  house  which  is  from 


266  Christian  Science 

heaven  [God's  idea  or  body].  If  so  be  that  being 
clothed  we  shall  not  be  found  naked.  [Remember 
Adam  and  Eve  did  not  know  that  they  were  naked 
till  they  had  a  sense  of  matter].  For  we  that  are  in 
this  tabernacle  do  groan,  being  burdened :  not  for  that 
we  would  be  unclothed  [destroyed],  but  clothed  upon, 
that  mortality  might  be  swallowed  up  of  life  [mortal 
mind  swallowed  up  of  spiritual  mind]. 

Rev.  2:  10.  Fear  none  of  those  things  which 
thou  shalt  suffer :  behold,  the  devil  [carnal  mind]  shall 
cast  some  of  you  into  prison  [mortal  sense],  that  ye 
may  be  tried;  and  ye  shall  have  tribulation  ten  days 
[continuity  of  life]:  be  thou  faithful  unto  death  [of 
mortal  sense  and  carnal  law],  and  I  will  give  thee  a 
crown  of  life  [consciousness  of  eternal  life]. 

Rev.  II:  15.  And  the  seventh  angel  sounded; 
and  there  were  great  voices  in  heaven,  saying.  The 
kingdoms  of  this  world  [carnal  law]  are  become  the 
kingdoms  of  our  Lord  [spiritual  law],  and  of  his  Christ 
[mind] ;  and  he  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever  [in  man] 
[the  consciousness  of  men]. 

Deut.  7:  17,  18.  If  thou  shalt  say  in  thine  heart, 
These  nations  are  more  than  I  [carnal  mind  more  than 
spiritual  mind];  how  can  I  dispossess  them?  Thou 
shalt  not  be  afraid  of  them:  but  shalt  well  remember 
what  the  Lord  thy  God  did  unto  Pharaoh,  and  unto 
all  Egypt  [sense  of  carnal  law  is  often  indicated  by 
Egypt  or  Egyptians  in  the  Bible]. 

Deut.  15:  9,  10.  Beware  that  there  be  not  a 
thought  in  thy  wicked  heart  [carnal  mind],  saying, 
The  seventh  year,  the  year  of  release,  is  at  hand;  and 
thine  eye  be  evil  against  thy  poor  brother,  and  thou 
givest  him  nought;  and  he  cry  unto  the  Lord  against 
thee,  and  it  be  sin  unto  thee. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       267 

Thou  shalt  surely  give  him,  and  thine  heart  shall 
not  be  grieved  when  thou  givest  unto  him:  because 
that  for  this  thing  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  bless  thee  in 
all  thy  works,  and  in  all  that  thou  puttest  thine  hand 
unto. 

Job  8:  II.  Can  the  rush  grow  up  without  mire? 
can  the  flag  grow  without  water?  [By  carnal 
law,  no.] 

Micah  4:  II,  12.  Now  also  many  nations  are 
gathered  against  thee,  that  say,  Let  her  be  defiled, 
and  let  our  eye  look  upon  Zion.  But  they  know 
not  the  thoughts  of  the  Lord  [carnal  minds  cannot 
comprehend  God],  neither  understand  they  his 
counsel:  for  he  shall  gather  them  as  the  sheaves 
into  the  floor. 

Matt.  19:  23.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  his  dis- 
ciples, Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  That  a  rich  man  [rich 
in  perception  of  material  things,  not  rich  as  we  use 
the  word,  necessarily]  shall  hardly  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  heaven. 

Luke  6:  45.  A  good  man  [spiritual  mind]  out 
of  the  good  treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that 
which  is  good ;  and  an  evil  man  [carnal  mind]  out  of  the 
evil  treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that  which  is 
evil:  for  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  his  mouth 
speaketh. 

[Where  your  treasure  is  there  will  your  heart  be 
also.] 

[Please  try  to  interpret  the  three  ensuing  verses  (i) 
on  the  ordinarily  accepted  theory  of  consciousness 
and  (2)  on  the  theory  of  consciousness  set  forth  in 
this  hook.  Do  this  for  yourself  and  see  into  which 
theory  the  words  of  Jesus  quoted  fit  the  best ;] 

John  9:   39,  40,  41.      And  Jesus  said,  For  judg- 


268  Christian  Science 

ment  I  am  come  into  this  world,  that  they  which  see 
not  might  see ;  and  that  they  which  see  might  be  made 
blind. 

And  some  of  the  Pharisees  which  were  with  him 
heard  these  words,  and  said  unto  him,  Are  we  blind 
also? 

Jesus  said  unto  them,  //  ye  were  blind,  ye  should  have 
no  sin:  but  now  ye  say,  We  see;  therefore  your  sin 

REMAINETH. 

Amos.  2:  4,  14,  16.  Thus  saith  the  Lord;  For 
three  transgressions  of  Judah,  and  for  four,  I  will  not 
turn  away  the  punishment  thereof ;  because  they  have 
despised  the  law  of  the  Lord,  and  have  not  kept  his 
commandments,  and  their  lies  caused  them  to  err, 
after  the  which  their  fathers  have  walked  : 

Therefore  the  flight  shall  perish  from  the  swift 
[carnal  mind] ,  and  the  strong  shall  not  strengthen  his 
force,  neither  shall  the  mighty  deliver  himself: 

And  he  that  is  courageous  among  the  mighty 
[carnal  mind]  shall  flee  away  naked  in  that  day, 
saith  the  Lord. 

Col.  3:  5,  6.  Mortify  therefore  your  members 
which  are  upon  the  earth;  fornication,  uncleanness,  in- 
ordinate affection,  evil  concupiscence,  and  covetous- 
ness,  which  is  idolatry: 

For  which  things'  sake  the  wrath  of  God  cometh  on 
the  children  of  disobedience. 

Amos  8:  4-6,  11.  Hear  this,  0  ye  that  swallow 
up  the  needy,  even  to  make  the  poor  of  the  land  to  fall. 

Saying,  When  will  the  new  moon  be  gone,  that  we 
may  sell  corn?  and  the  sabbath,  that  we  may  set  forth 
wheat,  making  the  ephah  small,  and  the  shekel  great, 
and  falsifying  the  balances  by  deceit  [sounds  natural 
like  "the  law  of  nature"  does  it  not?]? 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       269 

That  we  may  buy  the  poor  for  silver,  and  the  needy 
for  a  pair  of  shoes;  yea,  and  sell  the  refuse  of  the 
wheat? 

Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the  Lord  God,  that  I 
will  send  a  famine  in  the  land,  not  a  famine  of  bread, 
nor  a  thirst  for  water,  but  of  hearing  the  words  of  the 
Lord. 

II.  Pet.  2:  12.  But  these,  as  natural  brute 
beasts  made  to  be  taken  and  destroyed,  speak  evil  of 
the  things  that  they  understand  not ;  and  shall  utterly 
perish  in  their  own  corruption : 

Amos  5:  I,  25-27.  Hear  ye  this  word  which  I 
take  up  against  you,  even  a  lamentation,  0  house  of 
Israel. 

Have  ye  offered  unto  me  sacrifices  and  offerings  in 
the  wilderness  forty  years,  O  house  of  Israel? 

But  ye  have  borne  the  tabernacle  of  your  Moloch 
and  Chiun  your  images,  the  star  of  your  god,  which 
ye  made  to  yourselves  [material  body]. 

Therefore  will  I  cause  you  to  go  into  captivity 
beyond  Damascus,  saith  the  Lord,  whose  name  is  The 
God  of  hosts. 

Matt.  23:  38.  Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto 
you  desolate. 

Rev.  3:  17,  18.  Because  thou  sayest,  I  am  rich, 
and  increased  with  goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing; 
and  knowest  not  that  thou  art  wretched,  and  miserahlej 
and  poor,  and  blind,  and  naked: 

I  counsel  thee  to  buy  of  me  gold  tried  in  the  fire, 
that  thou  mayest  be  rich;  and  white  raiment,  that 
thou  mayest  be  clothed,  and  that  the  shame  of  thy 
nakedness  do  not  appear;  and  anoint  thine  eyes 
with  eyesalve,  that  thou  mayest  see  [with  spiritual 
mind]. 


270  Christian  Science 

Psalms  36:  1-3.  The  transgression  of  the  wicked 
saith  within  my  heart,  that  there  is  no  fear  of  God 
before  his  eyes. 

For  he  flattereth  himself  in  his  own  eyes,  until  his 
iniquity  be  found  to  be  hateful. 

The  words  of  his  mouth  are  iniquity  and  deceit :  he 
hath  left  off  to  be  wise,  and  to  do  good. 

Rom.  8:  15-19.  For  ye  have  not  received  the 
spirit  of  bondage  again  to  fear;  but  ye  have  re- 
ceived the  Spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  we  cry,  Abba, 
Father. 

The  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit, 
that  we  are  the  children  of  God ; 

And  if  children,  then  heirs;  heirs  of  God,  and  joint 
heirs  with  Christ ;  if  so  be  that  we  suffer  with  him,  that 
we  may  be  also  glorified  together. 

For  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings  of  this  present  time 
are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  which 
shall  be  revealed  in  us. 

For  the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  [carnal 
mind]  waiteth  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of 
God. 

Isaiah  50:  10.  Who  is  among  you  that  feareth 
the  Lord,  that  obeyeth  the  voice  of  his  servant, 
that  walketh  in  darkness,  and  hath  no  light?  let 
him  trust  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  stay  upon 
his  God. 

Job  15:  14.  What  is  man,  that  he  should  be 
clean?  and  he  which  is  born  of  a  woman,  that  he 
should  be  righteous  ? 

Psalms  39:  5.  Behold,  thou  hast  made  my 
days  as  a  handbreadth;  and  mine  age  is  as  nothing 
before  thee:  verily  every  man  at  his  best  state  is 
altogether  vanity.     Selah. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       271 

Job  25:  4.  How  then  can  man  be  justified  with 
God?  or  how  can  he  be  clean  that  is  born  of  a 
woman  ? 

Isaiah  10:  i.  Woe  unto  them  that  decree  un- 
righteous decrees,  and  that  write  grievousness  which 
they  have  prescribed. 


SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

Jeremiah  31:  33,  34.  After  those  days,  saith 
the  Lord,  I  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts 
[the  spiritual  law],  and  write  it  in  their  hearts;  and 
will  be  their  God,  and  they  shall  be  my  people.  And 
they  shall  teach  no  more  every  man  his  neighbour,  and 
every  man  his  brother,  saying,  Know  the  Lord:  for 
they  shall  know  me,  from  the  least  of  them  unto  the 
greatest  of  them,  saith  the  Lord :  for  I  will  forgive  their 
iniquity,  and  I  will  remember  their  sin  no  more. 

Zechariah  4:  6.  Then  he  answered  and  spake 
unto  me,  saying.  This  is  the  word  of  the  Lord  unto 
Zerubbabel,  saying.  Not  by  might,  nor  by  power,  but 
by  my  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts. 

Matt.  22:  35-38.  Then  one  of  them,  which  was 
a  lawyer,  asked  him  a  question,  tempting  him,  and 
saying.  Master,  which  is  the  great  commandment  in 
the  law?  Jesus  said  unto  him.  Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind.  This  is  the  first  and  great 
commandment.  [Why — because  only  thus  can  man 
be  freed  from  the  carnal  law  and  rise  in  consciousness 
to  know  the  spiritual  law  of  his  higher  mind.] 

John  3:  6,  8.  That  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit 
is  spirit. 

The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest 
the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh, 

272 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       273 

and  whither  it  goeth :  so  is  everyone  that  is  born  of  the 
Spirit  [the  material  senses  cannot  apprehend  spirit]. 

Psalm  i:  i,  2,  3,  6.  Blessed  is  the  man  that 
walketh  not  in  the  counsel  of  the  ungodly  [carnal 
law],  nor  standeth  in  the  way  of  sinners  [nor  sin, 
disease,  and  death,  man's  law],  nor  sitteth  in  the  seat 
of  the  scornful.  But  his  delight  is  in  the  law  of  the 
Lord;  and  in  his  law  doth  he  meditate  day  and  night. 

f  Walketh     ") 
[  ■<  standeth      >-  progression  toward  inaction.] 
(-  sitteth         3 

And  he  shall  be  like  a  tree  planted  by  the  rivers  of 
water,  that  bringeth  forth  his  fruit  in  his  season;  his 
leaf  also  shall  not  wither;  and  whatsoever  he  doeth 
shall  prosper. 

For  the  Lord  knoweth  the  way  of  the  righteous :  but 
the  way  of  the  ungodly  shall  perish  [carnal  law, 
carnal  minds,  in  the  end  will  be  seen  to  be  nothing 
and  The  Christ  Mind  and  law  will  rule  man]. 

Psalm  107:  8,  9.  Oh  that  men  would  praise  the 
Lord  for  his  goodness,  and  for  his  wonderful  works  to 
the  children  of  men!  For  he  satisfieth  the  longing 
soul,  and  filleth  the  hungry  soul  with  goodness. 

Psalm  112:  4.  Unto  the  upright  there  ariseth  light 
in  the  darkness  [spirit,  in  the  false  sense  of  matter]. 

Proverbs  4:  20-22.  My  son,  attend  to  my  words; 
incline  thine  ear  unto  my  sayings.  Let  them  not 
depart  from  thine  eyes;  keep  them  in  the  midst  of 
thine  heart.  For  they  are  life  unto  those  that  find 
them,  and  health  to  all  their  flesh. 

Proverbs  8:  20,  21.     I  lead  in  the  way  of  right- 
eousness [spiritual  law  which  has  absolutely  nothing 
to  do  with  man's  law  which  is  ''foolishness  to  God"], 
in  the  midst  of  the  paths  of  judgment:  That  I  may 
18 


274  Christian  Science 

cause  those  that  love  me  to  inherit  substance  [spirit- 
ual, real  substance] ;  and  I  will  fill  their  treasures. 

Isaiah  60:  i,  2,  and  19,  20.  Arise,  shine;  for 
thy  light  is  come  [the  mind  of  Christ],  and  the  glory 
of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon  thee.  For,  behold,  the  dark- 
ness [a  sense  of  matter]  shall  cover  the  earth,  and  gross 
darkness  the  people:  but  the  Lord  shall  arise  upon 
thee  [mind  of  Christ],  and  his  glory  shall  be  seen  upon 
thee. 

The  sun  shall  be  no  more  [matter  as  a  source  of 
light  shall  not  be  known]  thy  light  by  day ;  neither  for 
brightness  shall  the  moon  give  light  unto  thee:  but 
the  Lord  shall  be  unto  thee  an  everlasting  light,  and 
thy  God  thy  glory.  Thy  sun  shall  no  more  go  down ; 
neither  shall  thy  moon  withdraw  itself:  for  the  Lord 
shall  be  thine  everlasting  light,  and  the  days  of  thy 
mourning  shall  be  ended. 

Isaiah  65:  17.  For,  behold,  I  create  new 
heavens  and  a  new  earth:  and  the  former  shall  not 
be  remembered,  nor  come  into  mind  [consciousness]. 

Jeremiah  7:  3,  7.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts, 
the  God  of  Israel,  Amend  your  ways  and  your  doings, 
and  I  will  cause  you  to  dwell  in  this  place  [mind  of 
Christ].  Then  will  I  cause  you  to  dwell  in  this  place, 
in  the  land  that  I  gave  to  your  fathers,  for  ever  and 
ever. 

John  4:  23.  But  the  hour  cometh,  and  now  is, 
when  the  true  worshippers  [the  mind  of  Christ]  shall 
worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth  [without 
knowledge  of  carnal  law  and  mind] :  for  the  Father 
seeketh  such  to  worship  him. 

John  6:  33,  51.  The  bread  of  God  is  he  which 
cometh  down  from  heaven,  and  giveth  life  unto  the 
world. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       275 

I  am  the  living  bread  [spiritual  mind]  which  came 
down  from  heaven  [the  knowledge  of  the  nothingness 
of  matter  exemplified  by  the  Christ  life] :  if  any  man 
eat  of  this  bread  [spiritual  law],  he  shall  live  for  ever: 
and  the  bread  that  I  will  give  is  my  flesh  [through 
crucifying  my  flesh,  I  teach  that  carnal  law  is  no  law 
and  show  the  way  to  spiritual  consciousness],  which  I 
will  give  for  the  life  of  the  world. 

Exodus  33:  14.  And  he  said,  My  presence  [the 
mind  of  Christ],  shall  go  with  thee,  and  I  will  give  thee 
rest. 

Exodus  34:  10.  And  he  said,  Behold,  I  make  a 
covenant  [spiritual  law,  not  material  law] :  before  all 
thy  people  I  will  do  marvels,  such  as  have  not  been 
done  in  all  the  earth,  nor  in  any  nation. 

Psalm  119:  165.  Great  peace  have  they  which 
love  thy  law :  and  nothing  shall  offend  them. 

Jeremiah  29:  8,  11,  12,  13.  For  thus  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel;  Let  not  your  pro- 
phets and  your  diviners  [carnal  minds],  that  be  in  the 
midst  of  you,  deceive  you,  neither  hearken  to  your 
dreams  which  ye  cause  to  be  dreamed.  For  I  know 
the  thoughts  that  I  think  toward  you,  saith  the  Lord, 
thoughts  of  peace,  and  not  of  evil,  to  give  you  an 
expected  end  [expected  through  carnal  law  which 
works  retribution  and  not  love  and  correction  unto 
perfection]. 

Then  shall  ye  call  upon  me,  and  ye  shall  go  and 
pray  unto  me,  and  I  will  hearken  unto  you.  And  ye 
shall  seek  me,  and  find  me,  when  ye  shall  search  for 
me  with  all  your  heart  [both  minds  as  one]. 

Job  19:  25-27.  For  I  know  that  my  Redeemer 
liveth  [mind  of  Christ],  and  that  he  shall  stand  at  the 
latter  day  upon  the  earth  [in  my  consciousness] :  And 


^^d  Christian  Science 

though  after  my  skin  worms  destroy  this  body 
[though  I  appear  to  die  and  have  not  now  a  conscious- 
ness of  continuous  Hfe],  yet  in  my  flesh  [in  God's  idea 
of  a  body,  uncorrupted  by  carnal  law],  shall  I  see  God: 
Whom  I  shall  see  for  myself,  and  mine  eyes  shall 
behold,  and  not  another ;  though  my  reins  be  consumed 
within  me. 

Psalm  43:  3.  0  send  out  thy  light  and  thy 
truth :  let  them  lead  me ;  let  them  bring  me  unto  thy 
holy  hill  [consciousness  of  God],  and  to  thy  taber- 
nacles [God's  idea  of  body]. 

Isaiah  2:5.  0  house  of  Jacob,  come  ye,  and  let  us 
walk  in  the  light  of  the  Lord. 


MORTAL  LIFE 

Psalm  8i :  12-14.  So  I  gave  them  up  unto  their 
own  hearts'  lust  [carnal  consciousness  and  law] :  and 
they  walked  in  their  own  [plainly  stated  as  not 
God's  law]  [carnal  law  not  God's  law]  counsels.  Oh, 
that  my  people  had  hearkened  unto  me,  and  Israel 
had  walked  in  my  ways !  I  should  soon  have  subdued 
their  enemies  [false  perception  of  evil],  and  turned  my 
hand  against  their  adversaries. 

Jeremiah  51:  37.  Babylon  [mortal  consciousness], 
shall  become  heaps,  a  dwelling  place  for  dragons,  an 
astonishment,  and  a  hissing,  without  an  inhabitant. 

Ezekiel  30:  3,  4,  19.  For  the  day  is  near,  even 
the  day  of  the  Lord  is  near,  a  cloudy  day ;  it  shall  be 
the  time  of  the  heathen.  And  the  sword  shall  come 
upon  Egypt  [mortal  sense],  and  great  pain  shall  be  in 
Ethiopia,  when  the  slain  shall  fall  in  Egypt,  and  they 
shall  take  away  her  multitude,  and  her  foundations 
shall  be  broken  down  [carnal  law  is  the  foundation 
of  mortal  carnal  life,  and  is  foolishness  to  God]. 

Thus  will  I  execute  judgments  in  Egypt  [mortal 
consciousness]:  and  they  shall  know  that  I  am  the 
Lord. 

Job  19:  7,  8.  Behold,  I  cry  out  of  wrong  [carnal 
mind],  but  i  am  not  heard  [a  belief  in  carnal  law 
meets  no  response  of  God] :  I  cry  aloud,  but  there  is 
no  judgment. 

277 


27S  Christian  Science 

He  hath  fenced  up  my  way  that  I  cannot  pass,  and 
he  hath  set  darkness  in  my  paths  ["He" — carnal 
mind,  not  God]. 

Job  24:  12,  13.  Men  groan  from  out  of  the 
city  [mortal  minds],  and  the  soul  of  the  wounded 
crieth  out:  yet  God  layeth  not  folly  to  them  [they 
know  not  what  they  do].  They  are  of  those  that  rebel 
against  the  light  [loving  darkness,  a  perception  of 
matter,  evil];  they  know  not  the  ways  thereof,  nor 
abide  in  the  paths  thereof. 

Job  29:  I,  2,  3.  Moreover  Job  continued  his 
parable,  and  said.  Oh  that  I  were  as  in  months  past, 
as  in  the  days  when  God  preserved  me ; 

When  his  candle  shined  upon  my  head,  and  when 
by  his  light  I  walked  through  darkness  [darkness — 
nothing;  is  not  where  there  is  light]. 

Job  37:  19.  Teach  us  what  we  shall  say  unto 
him  [to  carnal  mind] ;  for  we  cannot  order  our  speech 
by  reason  of  darkness  [a  perception  or  consciousness 
of  matter  and  evil]. 

Ecc.  1 :  14,  15.  I  have  seen  all  the  works  that 
are  done  under  the  sun  [material  sun];  and,  behold, 
all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  That  which  is 
crooked  cannot  be  made  straight:  and  that  which  is 
wanting  cannot  be  numbered.  [You  cannot  ulti- 
mately work  out  salvation  through  carnal  law.] 

Ecc.  2:  4-13.  I  made  me  great  works;  [carnal 
law  is  always  wrong] :  I  builded  me  houses ;  I  planted 
me  vineyards:  I  made  me  gardens  and  orchards,  and 
I  planted  trees  in  them  of  all  kinds  of  fruits :  I  made 
me  pools  of  water,  to  water  therewith  the  wood  that 
bringeth  forth  trees :  I  got  me  servants  and  maidens, 
and  had  servants  born  in  my  house ;  also  I  had  great 
possessions  of  great  and  small  cattle  above  all  that 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        279 

were  in  Jerusalem  before  me :  I  gathered  me  also  silver 
and  gold,  and  the  peculiar  treasure  of  kings  and  of 
the  provinces :  I  gat  me  men  singers  and  women  sing- 
ers, and  the  delights  of  the  sons  of  men,  as  musical 
instruments,  and  that  of  all  sorts. 

So  I  was  great,  and  increased  more  than  all  that 
were  before  me  in  Jerusalem :  also  my  wisdom  [carnal 
law,  "foolishness  to  God"]  remained  with  me.  And 
whatsoever  mine  eyes  desired  [carnal  mind]  I  kept 
not  from  them,  I  withheld  not  my  heart  from  any 
joy;  for  my  heart  rejoiced  in  all  my  labour:  and  this 
was  my  portion  of  all  my  labour. 

Then  I  looked  on  all  the  works  that  my  hands  had 
wrought  [carnal  law  made  by  man  in  the  counsel  of 
years],  and  on  the  labour  that  I  had  laboured  to  do: 
and,  behold,  all  was  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,  and 
there  was  no  profit  under  the  sun  [the  material  sun]. 

And  I  turned  myself  to  behold  wisdom  [foolishness 
to  God],  and  madness,  and  folly  [that  kind  of  wisdom 
is  madness  and  folly;  carnal  law;  think  this  over;  can 
it  be  more  plainly  stated  that  man's  so-called  wisdom 
is>  foolishness  with  God?] :  for  what  can  the  man  do  that 
Cometh  after  the  king  [God  has  done  it  already]; 
even  that  which  hath  been  already  done?  Then  I 
saw  that  wisdom  [true  wisdom]  excelleth  folly,  as  far 
as  light  excelleth  darkness  [darkness  equals  a  percep- 
tion of  matter]. 

Psalm  6:  4,  5.  Return,  0  Lord,  deliver  my  soul: 
oh  save  me  for  thy  mercies*  sake.  For  in  death 
[carnal  law  and  mind]  there  is  no  remembrance  of 
thee :  in  the  grave  [ye  are  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins] 
who  shall  give  thee  thanks? 

Psalm  82  :  5,  6.  All  the  foundations  of  the 
earth  are  out  of  course  [carnal  law].     I  have  said,  Ye 


28o  Christian  Science 

are  gods  [carnal  mind  most  certainly  is  not]  ;  and  all 
of  you  are  children  of  the  Most  High  [spiritual  mind, 
the  Mind  of  Christ]. 

Isaiah  24:  4,  5.  The  earth  mourneth  and  fadeth 
away,  the  world  languisheth  and  fadeth  away,  the 
haughty  people  [carnal  minds]  of  the  earth  do  lan- 
guish. The  earth  also  is  defiled  under  the  inhabitants 
thereof  [carnal  law];  because  they  have  transgressed 
the  laws,  changed  the  ordinance  [carnal  law  is  not 
God's  law,  God's  law  has  not  been  understood  by 
man],  broken  the  everlasting  covenant. 

17.  Fear,  and  the  pit,  and  the  snare,  are  upon  thee, 
O  inhabitant  of  the  earth.  [Again  can  it  be  more 
plainly  stated  that  the  carnal  law  is  foolishness  to 
God?] 

Jeremiah  2:  26,27,  28.  As  the  thief  is  ashamed 
when  he  is  found  [carnal  minds  uncovered  and  their 
law  exposed  as  no  law],  so  is  the  house  of  Israel 
ashamed;  they,  their  kings,  their  princes,  and  their 
priests,  and  their  prophets.  Saying  to  a  stock.  Thou 
art  my  Father  [material  law  which  has  caused  men  to 
be  born  by  material  means  is  not  God's  law] ;  and  to  a 
stone.  Thou  hast  brought  me  forth:  for  they  have 
turned  their  back  unto  me  [pulled  down  the  shades] 
[turned  from  the  light],  and  not  their  face  [mind  of 
Christ] :  but  in  the  time  of  their  trouble  they  will  say, 
Arise,  and  save  us.  But  where  are  thy  gods  that 
thou  hast  made  thee?  [Where  is  the  law  which  is 
"foolishness  with  God?"]  let  them  arise,  if  they  can 
save  thee  in  the  time  of  thy  trouble  [carnal  law] :  for 
according  to  the  number  of  thy  cities  [each  man  wor- 
shipping his  own  carnal  sense]  are  thy  gods,  O  Judah. 

Jeremiah  6:  16.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Stand  ye 
in  the  ways,  and  see,  and  ask  for  the  old  paths  [spin- 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        281 

tual  law],  where  is  the  good  way,  and  walk  therein,  and 
ye  shall  find  rest  for  your  souls.  But  they  said,  We 
will  not  walk  therein  [made  their  own  carnal  law  which 
includes  all  ^' Material'^  understanding. 

Rev.  20:  14.  And  death  [mortal  sense]  and  hell 
[mortal  suffering]  were  cast  into  the  lake  of  fire 
[became  nothing  in  consciousness  through  spiritual 
perception].  This  is  the  second  death  [the  first 
being  our  present  material  perception]. 


CURE  OF  SICKNESS  AND  OTHER      MIRACLES      UNDER  THE 
SPIRITUAL  LAW 

John  14:  12.  He  that  beHeveth  [lives  with  the 
mind  of  Christ]  on  me,  the  works  that  I  do  shall  he 
do  also;  and  greater  works  than  these  shall  he  do; 
because  I  go  unto  my  Father. 

Acts  26:  4,  5,  8,  24-26.  My  manner  of  life  from 
my  youth,  which  was  at  the  first  among  mine  own 
nation  at  Jerusalem,  know  all  the  Jews;  Which 
knew  me  from  the  beginning,  if  they  would  testify, 
that  after  the  most  straitest  sect  of  our  religion  I  lived 
a  Pharisee. 

8.  Why  should  it  be  thought  a  thing  incredible 
with  you,  that  God  [or  the  Son  of  God :  Jesus  Christ  or 
any  other  who  lives  in  Him  and  is  subject  not  to  the 
law  of  sin  and  death  but  to  the  law  of  the  spirit] 
should  raise  the  dead? 

24.  And  as  he  thus  spake  for  himself,  Festus 
said  with  a  loud  voice,  Paul,  thou  art  beside  thy 
self;  much  learning  doth  make  thee  mad.  But  he 
said,  I  am  not  mad,  most  noble  Festus;  but  speak 
forth  the  words  of  truth  and  soberness.  For  the 
king  knoweth  of  these  things,  before  whom  also  I 
speak  freely:  for  I  am  persuaded  that  none  of  these 
things  are  hidden  from  him;  for  this  thing  was  not 
done  in  a  corner. 

Matt.  9:  4-8.  And  Jesus  knowing  their  thoughts 
282 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        283 

said,  Wherefore  think  ye  evil  [material  thoughts 
of  carnal  law]  in  your  hearts?  For  whether  is 
easier,  to  say.  Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee;  or  to  say, 
Arise,  and  walk?  But  that  ye  may  know  that  the 
Son  of  man  hath  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins,  (then 
saith  he  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,)  Arise,  take  up  thy 
bed,  and  go  unto  thine  house.  And  he  arose,  and 
departed  to  his  house.  But  when  the  multitudes  saw 
it,  they  marvelled,  and  glorified  God,  which  had  given 
such  power  unto  men.  [Sin  and  sickness  the  same  to 
Jesus.] 

John  10:  30,  37,  38.     I  and  my  Father  are  one. 

If  I  do  not  the  works  of  my  Father  [the  spiritual 
law],  believe  me  not.  But  if  I  do,  though  ye  believe 
not  me,  believe  the  works  [he  that  believeth  on  me, 
the  works  that  I  do  shall  he  do  also — because  he  will 
be  no  longer  subject  to  the  carnal  law] :  that  ye  may 
know,  and  believe,  that  the  Father  is  in  me,  and  I  in 
him.  [In  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being.] 

Philippians  4:  13.  I  can  do  all  things  through 
Christ  [mind  of  Christ  in  me]  which  strengtheneth  me. 
[Do  you  believe  this?] 

Matt.  17:  14-21.  And  when  they  were  come  to 
the  multitude,  there  came  to  him  a  certain  man, 
kneeling  down  to  him,  and  saying,  Lord,  have  mercy 
on  my  son;  for  he  is  lunatic,  and  sore  vexed:  and  I 
brought  him  to  thy  disciples,  and  they  could  not  cure 
him.  Then  Jesus  answered  and  said,  0  faithless  and 
perverse  generation,  how  long  shall  I  be  with  you? 
how  long  shall  I  suffer  you?  bring  him  hither  to  me. 
And  Jesus  rebuked  the  devil ;  and  he  departed  out  of 
him;  and  the  child  was  cured  from  that  very  hour. 
Then  came  the  disciples  to  Jesus  apart,  and  said, 


284  Christian  Science 

Why  could  not  we  cast  him  out?  And  Jesus  said 
unto  them,  Because  of  your  unbelief;  for  verily  I 
say  unto  you,  If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard 
seed  [in  the  highest  mind,  the  only  begotten  son,  the 
law  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ],  ye  shall  say  unto  this 
mountain.  Remove  hence  to  yonder  place;  and  it 
shall  remove:  and  nothing  shall  be  impossible  unto 
you. 

Howbeit  this  kind  goeth  not  out  but  by  prayer 
[communion  with  God  through  the  Christ  Mind]  and 
fasting  [from  all  material  perceptions]. 

Jeremiah  30:  17.  For  I  will  restore  health  unto 
thee,  and  I  will  heal  thee  of  thy  wounds,  saith  the 
Lord;  because  they  called  thee  an  Outcast,  saying, 
This  is  Zion,  whom  no  man  seeketh  after  [mortal 
life.] 

Joel  2:  28,  32.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  after- 
ward, that  I  will  pour  out  my  Spirit  [the  mind  which 
is  in  Christ]  upon  all  flesh;  and  your  sons  and  your 
daughters  shall  prophesy,  your  old  men  shall  dream 
dreams,  your  young  men  shall  see  visions :  And  it  shall 
come  to  pass,  that  whosoever  shall  call  on  the  name  of 
the  Lord  [the  mind  of  Christ  communing  with  God] 
shall  be  delivered. 

Matt.  8:  13.  And  Jesus  said  unto  the  centurion, 
Go  thy  way ;  and  as  thou  hast  believed,  so  be  it  done  unto 
thee.  And  his  servant  was  healed  in  the  selfsame 
hour. 

Matt.  21 :  14.  And  the  blind  and  the  lame  came  to 
him  to  the  temple;  and  he  healed  them. 

Luke  7:  50.  And  he  said  to  the  woman,  Thy 
faith  hath  saved  thee;  go  in  peace  [the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for  exercised  toward  the  mind  of  Christ 
in  each  man]. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        285 

Matt.  10:  I.  And  when  he  had  called  unto  him 
his  twelve  disciples,  he  gave  them  power  against  un- 
clean spirits,  to  cast  them  out,  and  to  heal  all  manner 
of  sickness  and  all  manner  of  disease. 

Matt.  10:  7,  8.  And  as  ye  go,  preach,  saying, 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand.  Heal  the  sick, 
and  cleanse  the  lepers,  raise  the  dead,  cast  out  devils : 
freely  ye  have  received,  freely  give. 

Matt.  12:  22.  Then  was  brought  unto  him  one 
possessed  with  a  devil,  blind,  and  dumb :  and  he  healed 
him,  insomuch  that  the  blind  and  dumb  both  spake 
and  saw. 

Luke  4:  40.  Now  when  the  sun  was  setting,  all 
they  that  had  any  sick  with  divers  diseases  brought 
them  unto  him ;  and  he  laid  his  hands  on  every  one  of 
them  and  healed  them. 

[He  that  believeth  on  me  the  works  that  I  do  shall 
he  do  also.] 

Luke  5:  12.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  he  was 
in  a  certain  city,  behold  a  man  full  of  leprosy : 

13.  And  he  put  forth  his  hand,  and  touched  him, 
saying,  I  will:  be  thou  clean.  And  immediately  the 
leprosy  departed  from  him. 

Luke  6:  6.  And  it  came  to  pass  also  on  another 
sabbath,  that  he  entered  into  the  synagogue  and 
taught:  and  there  was  a  man  whose  right  hand  was 
withered. 

10.  And  looking  round  about  upon  them  all,  he 
said  unto  the  man.  Stretch  forth  thy  hand.  And 
he  did  so:  and  his  hand  was  restored  whole  as  the 
other. 

Luke  7:  14,  15.  And  he  came  and  touched  the 
bier:  and  they  that  bare  him  stood  still.  And  he  said, 
Young  man,  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise.     And  he  that  was 


286  Christian  Science 

dead  sat  up,  and  began  to  speak.  And  he  delivered 
him  to  his  mother. 

50.  And  he  said  to  the  woman,  Thy  faith  hath 
saved  thee  [the  substance  of  things  hoped  for  exer- 
cised toward  the  mind  of  Christ  in  each  man] ;  go  in 
peace. 

Luke  8:  24,  47.  And  they  came  to  him,  and 
awoke  him,  saying.  Master,  master,  we  perish.  Then 
he  arose,  and  rebuked  the  wind  and  the  raging  of  the 
water:  and  they  ceased,  and  there  was  a  calm. 

And  when  the  woman  saw  that  she  was  not  hid, 
she  came  trembling,  and  falling  down  before  him,  she 
declared  unto  him  before  all  the  people  for  what  cause 
she  had  touched  him,  and  how  she  was  healed  im- 
mediately. 

Luke  9:1,  6.  Then  he  called  his  twelve  disciples 
together,  and  gave  them  power  and  authority  over  all 
devils,  and  to  cure  diseases. 

And  they  departed,  and  went  through  the  towns, 
preaching  the  gospel,  and  healing  everywhere. 

John  5 :  8,  9.  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Rise,  take  up 
thy  bed,  and  walk.  And  immediately  the  man  was 
made  whole,  and  took  up  his  bed,  and  walked : 

John  II:  44.  And  he  that  was  dead  came  forth, 
bound  hand  and  foot  with  graveclothes ;  and  his  face 
was  bound  about  with  a  napkin.  Jesus  saith  unto 
them,  Loose  him,  and  let  him  go. 

John  15:  7.  If  y&  abide  in  me,  and  my  words  abide 
in  youy  ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be  done 
unto  you.     [Do  you  believe  this?] 

John  14:  12.  He  that  believeth  on  me  [lives  with  the 
mind  of  Christ],  the  works  that  I  do  shall  he  do  also;  and 
greater  works  than  these  shall  he  do;  because  I  go  unto  my 
father. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        287 

Acts  8 :  7.  And  many  taken  with  palsies,  and  that 
were  lame,  were  healed. 

Acts  14:  8,  10.  And  there  sat  a  certain  man  at 
Lystra,  impotent  in  his  feet,  being  a  cripple  from  his 
mother's  womb,  who  never  had  walked.  Paul  said 
with  a  loud  voice.  Stand  upright  on  thy  feet.  And  he 
leaped  and  walked. 

Acts  28:  3,  4,  5.  And  when  Paul  had  gathered  a 
bundle  of  sticks,  and  laid  them  on  the  fire,  there  came 
a  viper  out  of  the  heat,  and  fastened  on  his  hand. 
And  when  the  barbarians  saw  the  venomous  beast 
hang  on  his  hand,  they  said  among  themselves.  No 
doubt  this  man  is  a  murderer,  whom,  though  he  hath 
escaped  the  sea,  yet  vengeance  suffereth  not  to  live. 
And  he  shook  off  the  beast  into  the  fire,  and  felt  no 
harm.  [Do  you  think  God  would  ever  negative  his 
own  eternal  laws?  Could  you  believe  in  a  God  who 
could?] 

I.  Cor.  3 :  19-20.  For  the  wisdom  of  this  world  [carnal 
law  is  not  God's  law]  is  foolishness  with  God:  for  it  is 
written,  he  taketh  the  wise  in  their  own  craftiness.  And 
again,  the  Lord  knoweth  the  thoughts  of  the  wise,  that 
they  are  vain.  [See  if  you  get  a  connection  between  the 
two  preceding.] 

Philippians  4:  13.  I  can  do  all  things  through 
Christ  [the  mind  of  Christ  within  me]  which  strength- 
eneth  me. 

Hebrews  4:  12.  The  word  of  God  is  quick,  and 
powerful,  and  sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword, 
piercing  even  to  the  dividing  asunder  of  soul  and 
spirit,  and  of  the  joints  and  marrow,  and  is  a  discerner 
of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart. 

James  5:15,  17,  18.  And  the  prayer  of  faith  shall 
save  the  sick,  and  the  Lord  shall  raise  him  up;  and 


288  Christian  Science 

if  he  have  committed  sins,  they  shall  be  forgiven  him. 
[A  Christian  Science  treatment  is  prayer,  nothing  more 
and  nothing  less. 

17.  Elias  was  a  man  subject  to  like  passions  as  we 
are,  and  he  prayed  earnestly  that  it  might  not  rain: 
and  it  rained  not  on  the  earth  by  the  space  of  three 
years  and  six  months.  And  he  prayed  again,  and  the 
heaven  gave  rain,  and  the  earth  brought  forth  her  fruit. 

I.  Kings  17:  17.  And  it  came  to  pass  after  these 
things,  that  the  son  of  the  woman,  the  mistress  of  the 
house,  fell  sick;  and  his  sickness  was  so  sore,  that 
there  was  no  breath  left  in  him. 

22.  And  the  Lord  heard  the  voice  of  Elijah;  and 
the  soul  of  the  child  came  into  him  again,  and  he 
revived. 

23.  And  Elijah  took  the  child,  and  brought  him 
down  out  of  the  chamber  into  the  house,  and  delivered 
him  unto  his  mother:  and  Elijah  said,  See,  thy  son 
liveth. 

II.  Chronicles  16:  12,  13.  And  Asa  in  the  thirty 
and  ninth  year  of  his  reign  was  diseased  in  his  feet, 
until  his  disease  was  exceeding  great :  yet  in  his  disease 
he  sought  not  to  the  Lord,  but  to  the  physicians. 

And  Asa  slept  with  his  fathers,  and  died  in  the  one 
and  fortieth  year  of  his  reign. 

Psalm  78:  12-14.  Marvellous  things  did  he  in  the 
sight  of  their  fathers,  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  in  the 
field  of  Zoan.  He  divided  the  sea,  and  caused  them 
to  pass  through;  and  he  made  the  waters  to  stand  as 
a  heap.  In  the  daytime  also  he  led  them  with  a 
cloud,  and  all  the  night  with  a  light  of  fire. 

Psalm  78:  17-22.  And  they  sinned  yet  more 
against  him  by  provoking  the  Most  High  in  the 
wilderness.     And  they  tempted  God  in  their  heart 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       289 

by  asking  meat  [material  instead  of  spiritual  food; 
man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone]  for  their  lust.  [No 
man  is  tempted  of  God;  he  is  led  away  of  his  own  lust 
and  deceived.] 

Yea,  they  spake  against  God;  they  said,  Can  God 
furnish  a  table  in  the  wilderness?  Behold,  he  smote 
the  rock,  that  the  waters  gushed  out,  and  the  streams 
overflowed;  can  he  give  bread  also?  can  he  provide 
flesh  for  his  people?  Therefore  the  Lord  heard  this, 
and  was  wroth :  because  they  believed  not  in  God,  and 
trusted  not  in  his  salvation. 

Psalm  91:  5-7.  Thou  shalt  not  be  afraid  for  the 
terror  by  night ;  nor  for  the  arrow  that  flieth  by  day. 

Nor  for  the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  darkness;  nor 
for  the  destruction  that  wasteth  at  noonday.  A 
thousand  shall  fall  at  thy  side,  and  ten  thousand  at 
thy  right  hand;  but  it  shall  not  come  nigh  thee. 

Acts  8:  7.     For  unclean  spirits,  crying  with  loud 
voice,  came  out  of  many  that  were  possessed  with 
them:  and  many  taken  with  palsies,  and  that  were 
lame,  were  healed. 
19 


CARNAL   LAW 

I.  John  2:  i6.  For  all  that  is  in  the  world,  the 
lust  of  the  flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride 
of  life,  is  not  of  the  Father,  but  is  of  the  world.  [How 
plainer  could  it  be  stated  that  the  carnal  law  is 
foolishness  to  God  and  is  man's  law  not  God's?] 

I.  Cor.  3:  19,  20.  For  the  wisdom  of  this  world 
[carnal  law  is  not  God's  law]  is  foolishness  with  God: 
for  it  is  written,  He  taketh  the  wise  in  their  own 
craftiness.  And  again,  The  Lord  knoweth  the 
thoughts  of  the  wise,  that  they  are  vain. 

II.  Cor.  4:  17,  18.  For  our  light  affliction  [mortal 
sense],  which  is  but  for  a  moment  [in  the  totality 
of  time],  worketh  for  us  a  far  more  exceeding  and 
eternal  weight  of  glory ;  While  we  look  not  at  the 
things  which  are  seen  [carnal  sense],  but  at  the  things 
which  are  not  seen:  for  the  things  which  are  seen  are 
temporal;  but  the  things  which  are  not  seen  are 
eternal  [spiritual  law]. 

John  17:  23,  25.  I  in  them,  and  thou  in  me,  that 
they  may  be  made  perfect  in  one  [one  mind.  "In 
him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being"];  and 
that  the  world  may  know  that  thou  hast  sent  me,  and 
hast  loved  them,  as  thou  hast  loved  me.  0  righteous 
Father,  the  world  [carnal  law  and  mind]  hath  not 

290 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        291 

known  thee:  but  I  [the  mind  of  Christ]  have  known 
thee,  and  these  have  known  that  thou  hast  sent  me. 

Job  18:  21.  Surely  such  are  the  dwellings  [carnal 
minds]  of  the  wicked,  and  this  is  the  place  of  him 
that  knoweth  not  God.  [Carnal  law  is  not  known  to 
God  and  he  has  notlmig  to  do  with  it.] 

Job  19:  7,  8.  Behold,  I  cry  out  of  wrong  [carnal 
mind],  but  I  am  not  heard  [a  belief  in  carnal  law 
meets  no  response  of  God]:  I  cry  aloud,  but  there 
is  no  judgment. 

He  hath  fenced  up  my  way  that  I  cannot  pass,  and 
he  hath  set  darkness  in  my  paths.  ["He" — carnal 
mind,  not  God.] 

Job  20:  22.  In  the  fulness  of  his  sufficiency  [the 
"wisdom"  which  is  foolishness  to  God]  he  shall  be 
in  straits:  every  hand  of  the  wicked  shall  come  upon 
him. 

Psalm  82:  5,  6.  All  the  foundations  of  the  earth 
are  out  of  course  [carnal  law].  I  have  said.  Ye  are 
gods  [carnal  mind  most  certainly  is  not]  ;  and  all  of 
you  are  children  of  the  Most  High  [spiritual  mind, 
the  Mind  of  Christ]. 

Isaiah  24:  4,  5.  The  earth  mourneth  and  fadeth 
away,  the  world  languisheth  and  fadeth  away,  the 
haughty  people  [carnal  minds]  of  the  earth  do  languish. 
The  earth  also  is  defiled  under  the  inhabitants  thereof 
[carnal  law] ;  because  they  have  transgressed  the  laws, 
changed  the  ordinance  [carnal  law  is  not  God's  law, 
God's  law  has  been  not  understood  by  man],  broken  the 
everlasting  covenant. 

17.  Fear,  and  the  pit,  and  the  snare,  are  upon  thee, 
O  inhabitant  of  the  earth.  [Again  can  it  be  more 
plainly  stated  that  the  carnal  law  is  foolishness  with 
God?] 


292  Christian  Science 

Jeremiah  2:  26,  27,  28.  As  the  thief  is  ashamed 
when  he  is  found  [carnal  minds  uncovered  and  their 
law  exposed  as  no  law],  so  is  the  house  of  Israel 
ashamed;  they,  their  kings,  their  princes,  and  their 
priests,  and  their  prophets,  Saying  to  a  stock,  Thou 
art  my  Father  [material  law  which  has  caused  men 
to  be  born  by  material  means  is  not  God's  law];  and  to 
a  stone.  Thou  hast  brought  me  forth:  for  they  have 
turned  their  back  unto  me  [pulled  down  the  shades] 
[turned  from  the  light],  and  not  their  face  [mind  of 
Christ] ;  but  in  the  time  of  their  trouble  they  will  say, 
Arise,  and  save  us.  But  where  are  thy  gods  that  thou 
hast  made  thee  [Where  is  the  law  which  is  "fooHsh- 
ness  with  God"]?  let  them  arise,  if  they  can  save  thee 
in  the  time  of  thy  trouble  [carnal  law] :  for  according 
to  the  number  of  thy  cities  [each  man  worshipping  his 
own  carnal  sense]  are  thy  gods,  0  Judah. 

Jeremiah  3:  21.  A  voice  was  heard  upon  the  high 
places,  weeping  and  supplications  of  the  children  of 
Israel:  for  they  have  perverted  their  way  [carnal  law], 
and  they  have  forgotten  the  Lord  their  God. 

Jeremiah  6:  16.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Stand  ye  in 
the  ways,  and  see,  and  ask  for  the  old  paths  [spiritual 
law],  where  is  the  good  way,  and  walk  therein,  and 
ye  shall  find  rest  for  your  souls.  But  they  said.  We 
will  not  walk  therein  [made  their  own  carnal  law, 
which  includes  all  ^' Material''  understanding]. 

Jeremiah  9:  23,  24.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Let 
not  the  wise  man  glory  in  his  wisdom  [carnal  law 
which  is  not  God's  law],  neither  let  the  mighty  man 
glory  in  his  might,  let  not  the  rich  man  glory  in  his 
riches  [perception  of  material  things]:  But  let  him 
that  glorieth  glory  in  this,  that  he  understandeth  and 
knoweth  me,  that  I  am  the  Lord  which  exercise  loving- 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       293 

kindness,  judgment,  and  righteousness,  in  the  earth: 
for  in  these  things  I  delight,  saith  the  Lord  [not  in 
suffering,  which  is  a  product  of  man's  own  law]. 

Jeremiah  29:  8,  11,  12,  13.  For  thus  saith  the  Lord 
of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel;  Let  not  your  prophets 
and  your  diviners  [carnal  minds],  that  be  in  the 
midst  of  you,  deceive  you,  neither  hearken  to  your 
dreams  which  ye  cause  to  be  dreamed.  For  I  know 
the  thoughts  that  I  think  toward  you,  saith  the  Lord, 
thoughts  of  peace,  and  not  of  evil,  to  give  you  an 
expected  end  [expected, — through  carnal  law  which 
works  retribution  and  not  love  and  correction  unto 
perfection]. 

Then  shall  ye  call  upon  me,  and  ye  shall  go  and 
pray  unto  me,  and  I  will  hearken  unto  you.  And  ye 
shall  seek  me,  and  find  me,  when  ye  shall  search  for 
me  with  all  your  heart  [both  minds  as  one]. 

John  3:  3,  6.  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him. 
Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  thee.  Except  a  man  be  born 
again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God.  That 
which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh  [material  law  is  of 
man,  not  of  God]. 

John  17:25.  O  righteous  Father,  the  world  [car- 
nal law]  hath  not  known  thee  [carnal  law,  not  of  God] ; 
but  I  have  known  thee,  and  these  have  known  that 
thou  hast  sent  me. 

Job  3 :  20.  Wherefore  is  light  [truth]  given  to  him 
that  is  in  misery  [carnal  mind],  and  life  unto  the 
bitter  in  soul  [carnal  sense]. 

Isaiah  8:  19,  20.  And  when  they  shall  say  unto 
you.  Seek  unto  them  that  have  familiar  spirits,  and 
unto  wizards  that  peep  and  that  mutter:  should  not 
a  people  seek  unto  their  God  ?  for  the  living  to  the 
dead? 


294  Christian  Science 

To  the  law  and  to  the  testimony  [of  sense] :  if  they 
speak  not  according  to  this  word,  it  is  because  there  is 
no  light  in  them  [carnal  law  is  not  God's  law]. 

Romans  i :  25.  Who  changed  the  truth  of  God  into 
a  lie  [by  injecting  a  false  interpretation  of  God's 
plan  into  that  plan  by  exercising  faith  in  the  direction 
of  the  perception  of  matter],  and  worshipped  and 
served  the  creature  [the  body  or  carnal  mind]  more 
than  the  Creator  [the  true  mind  of  man],  who  is 
blessed  for  ever. 

Romans  i :  23.  And  changed  the  glory  of  the  un- 
corruptible God  into  an  image  [carnal  mind,  the  body] 
made  like  to  corruptible  man,  and  to  birds,  and  four- 
footed  beasts,  and  creeping  things. 

I.  Cor.  15:  56.  The  sting  of  death  [sense  of  death]  is 
sin  [sense  of  matter]  [mortal  sense];  and  the  strength  of 
sin  is  the  law  [carnal  law  which  is  not  God's  law].  [How 
plainer  can  it  he  stated?  Could  God's  law  be  the 
strength  of  sin  ?]  [Please  review  what  was  said  in  text 
regarding  the  loss  of  material  things  being  the  sting  of 
death.] 

Romans  8:6.     For  to  be  carnally  minded  is  death. 

8.  So  then  they  that  are  in  the  flesh  [in  the  sense 
of  matter]  cannot  please  God  [because  the  carnal  law 
is  not  God's  law]. 

II.  Cor.  4:3,  4.  But  if  our  gospel  be  hid,  it  is  hid 
to  them  that  are  lost:  In  whom  the  god  of  this 
world  [mortal  sense]  hath  blinded  the  minds  of  them 
which  believe  not  [how  plainer  could  it  be  said  that 
our  present  inharmonious  laws  of  nature  are  not  God's 
laws?],  lest  the  light  of  the  glorious  gospel  of  Christ, 
[spiritual  sense  and  mind],  who  is  the  image  of  Gody 
should  shine  unto  them. 

I.  Cor.  3:  19.     For  the  wisdom  of  this  world  [car- 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       295 

nal  law]  is  foolishness  with  God :  for  it  is  written,  He 
taketh  the  wise  in  their  own  craftiness. 

20.  And  again,  The  Lord  knoweth  the  thoughts  of 
the  wise  [in  carnal  law,  physics,  chemistry,  germs,  etc., 
as  we  know  them,  yet  underneath  is  the  truth;  under- 
neath are  the  everlasting  arms],  that  they  are  vain. 

Acts  17:  28,  29.  For  in  him  we  live,  and  move, 
and  have  our  being;  Forasmuch  then  as  we  are  the 
offspring  of  God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  God- 
head is  like  unto  gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by 
art  and  man's  device  [i.e.,  the  body]. 

[Is  it  not  evident  that  the  Bible  teaches  that  there 
is  another  law,  and  that  what  we  have  called  the  law  of 
nature  is  not  the  law  of  God,  or  a  law  that  we  need  be 
subject  to  except  as  we  (mankind)  have  made  our- 
selves subject  to  it  ?] 

Romans  i :  23.  And  changed  the  glory  of  the 
uncorruptible  God  into  an  image  made  like  to  cor- 
ruptible man,  and  to  birds,  and  fourfooted  beasts, 
and  creeping  things  [bodies  made  by  man — biological 
theory]. 

Hebrews  3:  4.  For  every  house  is  builded  by 
some  man;  but  he  that  built  all  things  is  God.  [Have 
you  noticed  how  often  in  the  Bible  "temple"  or 
"house"  is  used  to  signify  the  body?] 

II.  Samuel  22:  3,  4,  6,  7.  The  God  of  my  rock;  in 
him  will  I  trust:  he  is  my  shield,  and  the  horn  of  my 
salvation,  my  high  tower,  and  my  refuge,  my  saviour; 
thou  savest  me  from  violence  [carnal  law].  I  will 
call  on  the  Lord,  who  is  worthy  to  be  praised;  so  shall 
I  be  saved  from  mine  enemies. 

The  sorrows  of  hell  compassed  me  about  [sense]; 
the  snares  of  death  [carnal  law,  which  is  not  God's 
law]  prevented  me. 


296  Christian  Science 

In  my  distress  I  called  upon  the  Lord  [spiritual 
law],  and  cried  to  my  God:  and  he  did  hear  my  voice 
out  of  his  temple  [proceeding  from  the  Christ  mind 
within  me],  and  my  cry  did  enter  into  his  ears. 

James  5:  15.  And  the  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the 
sick,  and  the  Lord  shall  raise  him  up;  and  if  he  have 
committed  sins,  they  shall  be  forgiven  him. 

Job  8:  II.  Can  the  rush  grow  up  without 
mire?  can  the  flag  grow  without  water?  [By  carnal 
law,  no.] 

Amos  8:  4-6,  11.  Hear  this,  O  ye  that  swallow 
up  the  needy,  even  to  make  the  poor  of  the  land 
to  fail. 

Saying,  When  will  the  new  moon  be  gone  [does  this 
sound  natural?],  that  we  may  sell  corn?  and  the 
sabbath,  that  we  may  set  forth  wheat,  making  the 
ephah  small,  and  the  shekel  great,  and  falsifying 
the  balances  by  deceit? 

That  we  may  buy  the  poor  for  silver,  and  the 
needy  for  a  pair  of  shoes ;  yea,  and  sell  the  refuse  of 
the  wheat? 

Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the  Lord  God,  that  I 
will  send  a  famine  in  the  land,  not  a  famine  of  bread, 
nor  a  thirst  for  water,  but  of  hearing  the  words  of  the 
Lord. 

Daniel  3:  17.  If  it  be  so,  our  God  whom  we  serve 
is  able  to  deliver  us  from  the  burning  fiery  furnace 
[carnal  law],  and  he  will  deliver  us  out  of  thine  hand, 
O  king. 

Isaiah  10:  I.  Woe  unto  them  that  decree  unright- 
eous decrees,  and  that  write  grievousness  which  they 
have  prescribed. 


LAW  OF  CHRIST 

Matt.  4:  4.  It  is  written,  Man  shall  not  live  by 
bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out 
of  the  mouth  of  God  [ideas  of  God]. 

II.  Cor.  10:  4,  5.  [For  the  weapons  of  our  warfare 
are  not  carnal  [carnal  mind],  but  mighty  through  God 
to  the  pulling  down  of  strong  holds]  [strong  men, 
i.e.  carnal  minds];  Casting  down  imaginations,  and 
every  high  thing  that  exalteth  itself  [the  carnal  law; 
the  wisdom  of  men,  which  is  foolishness  with  God] 
against  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  bringing  into 
captivity  [i.e.,  to  the  mind  which  is  in  Christ;  the  only 
begotten  Son,  in  each  and  every  man]  every  thought 
[every  thought  of  the  carnal  mind]  to  the  obedience 
of  Christ. 

Jeremiah  9:  23,  24.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Let  not 
the  wise  man  [carnal  mind]  glory  in  his  wisdom  [car- 
nal law],  neither  let  the  mighty  man  [see  Ecc.  12:  3] 
[carnal  mind]  glory  in  his  might,  let  not  the  rich  man 
[rich  in  a  perception  of  material  things]  glory  in  his 
riches:  But  let  him  that  glorieth  glory  in  this,  that  he 
understandeth  [state  of  consciousness]  and  knoweth 
me,  that  I  am  the  Lord  which  exercise  loving-kindness, 
judgment,  and  righteousness,  in  the  earth  [the  true 
earth,  God's  idea] ;  for  in  these  things  I  delight,  saith 
the  Lord. 

297 


29B  Christian  Science 

Daniel  2:  20-22.  Daniel  answered  and  said, 
Blessed  be  the  name  of  God  for  ever  and  ever;  for 
wisdom  and  might  are  his :  And  he  changeth  the  times 
and  the  seasons:  he  removeth  kings,  and  setteth  up 
kings:  he  giveth  wisdom  unto  the  wise,  and  knowledge 
to  them  that  know  understanding:  He  revealeth  the 
deep  and  secret  things:  he  knoweth  what  is  in  the 
darkness  [i.e.,  what  really  exists  in  our  senses  and 
what  does  not],  and  the  light  [truth]  dwelleth  with  him. 

Matt.  6:  24,  31-33.  No  man  can  serve  two  mas- 
ters [mortal  and  spiritual  mind]:  for  either  he  will 
hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other;  or  else  he  will  hold 
to  the  one,  and  despise  the  other.  Ye  cannot  serve 
God  and  mammon.  [See  remarks  about  those  who 
take  an  extreme  though  a  wrong  attitude.] 

Therefore  take  no  thought,  saying,  What  shall  we 
eat  ?  or.  What  shall  we  drink  ?  or,  Wherewithal  shall 
we  be  clothed?  (For  after  all  these  things  do  the 
Gentiles  seek:)  for  your  heavenly  Father  knoweth 
that  ye  have  need  of  all  these  things.  But  seek  ye  first 
the  kingdom  of  God  [spiritual  consciousness],  and  his 
righteousness ;  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto 
you  [in  sufficient  quantity]. 

Matt.  10:  7.  And  as  you  go,  preach,  saying,  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand  [consciousness  of  God 
through  the  Only  begotten  Son  within  each  man]. 

Matt.  15:  36,  37.  And  he  took  the  seven  loaves 
and  the  fishes,  and  gave  thanks,  and  brake  them,  and 
gave  to  his  disciples,  and  the  disciples  to  the  multi- 
tude. And  they  did  all  eat,  and  were  filled ;  and  they 
took  up  of  the  broken  meat  that  was  left  seven  baskets 
full.     [God's  children  have  their  needs  supplied.] 

Matt.  17 :  21.  Howbeit  this  kind  goeth  not  out  but 
by  prayer  and  fasting  [from  all  material  perceptions]. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life       299 

Matt.  19:  16,  17,  20,  21.  Behold,  one  came  and 
said  unto  him,  Good  Master,  what  good  thing  shall 
I  do,  that  I  may  have  eternal  life  [a  consciousness 
of  God]  ?  And  he  said  unto  him.  Why  callest  me  good  ? 
there  is  none  good  but  one,  that  is,  God;  but  if  thou 
wilt  enter  into  life,  keep  the  commandments. 

The  young  man  saith  unto  him,  All  these  things 
have  I  kept  from  my  youth  up:  what  lack  I  yet? 
Jesus  said  unto  him,  If  thou  wilt  be  perfect,  go  and 
sell  that  thou  hast  [your  sense  of  material  things], 
and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in 
heaven;  and  come  and  follow  me. 

Amos  9:  13,  15.  Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the 
Lord,  that  the  plowman  shall  overtake  the  reaper, 
and  the  treader  of  grapes  him  that  soweth  seed;  and 
the  mountains  shall  drop  sweet  wine,  and  all  the  hills 
shall  melt.  And  I  will  plant  them  upon  their  land, 
and  they  shall  no  more  be  pulled  up  out  of  their  land 
which  I  have  given  them,  saith  the  Lord  thy  God. 
[Rather  mixed  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  carnal 
law,  is  it  not  ?   Try  to  apply  it  to  God's  spiritual  ideas.) 

L  Cor.  3:  19,  20.  For  the  wisdom  of  this  world 
[the  carnal  law;  all  that  is  evil;  matter,  germs,  and 
sickness  included]  is  foolishness  with  God :  for  it  is 
written,  He  taketh  the  wise  in  their  own  craftiness. 
And  again.  The  Lord  knoweth  the  thoughts  of  the 
wise,  that  they  are  vain. 

Zechariah  4:  6.  Then  he  answered  and  spake 
unto  me,  saying,  This  is  the  word  of  the  Lord  unto 
Zerubbabel,  saying.  Not  by  might,  nor  by  power,  but 
by  my  Spirit  [the  mind  and  law  of  Christ  which  is  not 
the  law  of  man  or  that  carnal  law],  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts. 

Ezekiel  33:  11-17.     Say  unto  them,  As  I  live,  saith 


300  Christian  Science 

the  Lord  God,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  the 
wicked;  but  that  the  wicked  turn  from  his  way  and 
live;  turn  ye,  turn  ye  from  your  evil  ways;  for  why 
will  ye  die,  O  house  of  Israel? 

Therefore,  thou  son  of  man,  say  unto  the  children 
of  thy  people,  The  righteousness  of  the  righteous  shall 
not  deliver  him  in  the  day  of  his  transgression:  as  for 
the  wickedness  of  the  wicked,  he  shall  not  fall  thereby, 
in  the  day  that  he  turneth  from  his  wickedness; 
neither  shall  the  righteous  be  able  to  live  for  his 
righteousness  in  the  day  that  he  sinneth. 

When  I  shall  say  to  the  righteous,  that  he  shall 
surely  live;  if  he  trust  to  his  own  righteousness,  and 
commit  iniquity,  all  his  righteousness  shall  not  be 
remembered;  but  for  his  iniquity  that  he  hath  com- 
mitted, he  shall  die  for  it. 

Again,  when  I  say  unto  the  wicked.  Thou  shalt 
surely  die;  if  he  turn  from  his  sin,  and  do  that  which 
is  lawful  and  right; 

If  the  wicked  restore  the  pledge,  give  again  that  he 
had  robbed,  walk  in  the  statutes  of  life,  without 
committing  iniquity;  he  shall  surely  live,  he  shall  not 
die. 

None  of  his  sins  that  he  hath  committed  shall  he 
mentioned  unto  him:  he  hath  done  that  which  is 
lawful  and  right;  he  shall  surely  live. 

Yet  the  children  of  thy  people  say.  The  way  of  the 
Lord  is  not  equal:  but  as  for  them,  their  way  is  not 
equal.  [This  doesn't  sound  to  me  much  like  the 
carnal  law  of  retribution,  does  it  to  you?] 

[Remember — the  only  death  is  the  sense  of  evil.] 

Psalms  24:  I,  2.  The  earth  is  the  Lord's  [God's 
idea  of  the  earth],  and  the  fulness  thereof;  the  world, 
and  they  that  dwell  therein. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        301 

For  he  hath  founded  it  upon  the  seas,  and  estab- 
lished it  upon  the  floods. 

Matt.  25:  14,  15,  29.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  [life, 
real  life]  is  as  a  man  travelling  into  a  far  country, 
who  called  his  servants,  and  delivered  unto  them  his 
goods. 

And  unto  one  he  gave  five  talents,  to  another  two, 
and  to  another  one ;  to  every  man  according  to  his 
several  ability;  and  straightway  took  his  journey. 

For  unto  everyone  that  hath  [spiritual  conscious- 
ness and  law]  shall  be  given,  and  he  shall  have  abund- 
ance; but  from  him  that  hath  not  ["not  thought"] 
[mortal  consciousness  and  law]  shall  be  taken  away 
even  that  which  he  hath  [nothing].  [Sounds  more 
just  than  the  old  interpretation,  does  it  not  ?] 

Malachi  3:  10,  11.  Bring  ye  all  the  tithes  into  the 
storehouse,  that  there  may  be  meat  in  mine  house, 
and  prove  me  now  herewith,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts, 
if  I  will  not  open  you  the  windows  of  heaven,  and  pour 
you  out  a  blessing,  that  there  shall  not  be  room  enough 
to  receive  it.  And  I  will  rebuke  the  devourer  [carnal 
law  and  mind]  for  your  sakes,  and  he  shall  not  destroy 
the  fruits  of  your  ground ;  neither  shall  your  vine  cast 
her  fruit  before  the  time  in  the  field,  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts. 

Mark  12:  30.  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all 
thy  mind,  and  with  all  thy  strength :  this  is  the  first 
commandment.  [Why?  Because  thus  only  will  you 
gain  the  consciousness  of  oneness  with  Him.] 

Luke  10:  25-28.  And,  behold,  a  certain  lawyer 
stood  up,  and  tempted  him,  saying.  Master,  what 
shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life?  He  said  unto 
him,  What  is  written  in  the  law;  how  readest  thou? 


302  Christian  Science 

And  he  answering  said,  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and 
with  all  thy  strength,  and  with  all  thy  mind;  and  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself.  And  he  said  unto  him,  Thou 
hast  answered  right:  this  do,  and  thou  shalt  live. 

Luke  21 :  2,  3.  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away 
[a  consciousness  of  material  things  shall  pass  away]: 
but  my  words  shall  not  pass  away.  [The  ideas  of 
God  shall  live  for  ever,  by  every  word  which  proceed- 
eth  from  the  mouth  of  God  shall  man  live.] 

John  3:5.  Jesus  answered.  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  thee.  Except  a  man  be  born  of  water  and  of  the 
Spirit,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 

John  8:  51,  54,  55.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  If  a  man  keep  my  saying,  he  shall  never  see 
death. 

If  I  honour  myself,  my  honour  is  nothing:  it  is  my 
Father  that  honoureth  me ;  of  whom  ye  [carnal  minds] 
say,  that  he  is  your  God :  Yet  ye  [carnal  law  and  minds] 
have  not  known  him :  but  I  know  him :  and  if  I  should 
say,  I  know  him  not,  I  shall  be  a  liar  like  unto  you: 
but  I  know  him:  and  keep  his  saying  [spiritual  law 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  law  of  nature  or 
man's  law]. 

John  16:  33.  These  things  I  have  spoken  unto 
you,  that  in  me  ye  might  have  peace.  In  the  world 
ye  shall  have  tribulation  [carnal  law] ;  but  be  of  good 
cheer;  I  have  overcome  the  world  [by  spirit  and  its 
law]. 

John  18:  36.  Jesus  answered,  My  kingdom  [the 
law  of  spirit]  is  not  of  this  world  [carnal  law] ;  if  my 
kingdom  were  of  this  world,  then  would  my  servants 
fight  [how  about  war?]  that  I  should  not  be  delivered 
to  the  Jews ;  but  now  is  my  kingdom  not  from  hence. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        303 

Romans  8:  i,  2.  There  is  therefore  now  no  con- 
demnation [no  carnal  law.  This  is  the  condemnation 
that  light  hath  come  into  the  world  and  men  loved 
darkness  rather  than  the  light],  to  them  which  are  in 
Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh  [carnal 
law],  but  after  the  Spirit. 

For  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  hath 
made  me  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death. 

[Is  it  not  evident  that  the  Bible  teaches  that  there 
is  another  law,  and  that  what  we  have  called  the  in- 
harmonious and  law  of  nature  is  not  the  law  of  God  or 
a  law  that  we  need  be  subject  to  except  as  we  (man- 
kind) have  made  ourselves  subject  to  it?] 

Romans  12:  i,  2.  I  beseech  you  therefore,  breth- 
ren, by  the  mercies  of  God,  that  ye  present  your  bodies 
[your  sense  of  matter]  a  living  sacrifice,  holy,  accepta- 
ble unto  God,  which  is  your  reasonable  service.  And 
be  not  conformed  to  this  world :  but  be  ye  trans- 
formed by  the  renewing  of  your  mind,  that  ye  may 
prove  what  is  that  good,  and  acceptable,  and  perfect 
will  of  God  [no  evil  is  that  law]. 

II.  Cor.  4:  17-18.  For  our  light  affliction  [sense  of 
matter],  which  is  but /or  a  moment  [in  the  totality  of 
time],  worketh  for  us  a  far  more  [wakes  us  to  dynamic 
powers]  exceeding  and  eternal  weight  of  glory;  While 
we  look  not  at  the  things  which  are  seen  [carnal  law], 
but  at  the  things  which  are  not  seen  [spiritual  law]: 
for  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal;  but  the 
things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal. 

II.  Cor.  11:  3.  But  I  fear,  lest  by  any  means,  as 
the  serpent  [carnal  mind]  beguiled  Eve  through  his 
subtility,  so  your  minds  should  be  corrupted  from  the 
simplicity  that  is  in  Christ  [spiritual  law  inductive 
reasoning  based  on  spiritual  fact]. 


304  Christian  Science 

Hebrews  4:  12.  For  the  word  of  God  is  quick,  and 
powerful,  and  sharper  than  any  two-edged  sword, 
piercing  even  to  the  dividing  asunder  of  soul  and 
spirit,  and  of  the  joints  and  marrow,  and  is  a  discerner 
of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart. 

James  1:17.  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect  gift 
is  from  above,  and  cometh  down  from  the  Father  of 
lights  [no  darkness  because  no  matter],  with  whom  is 
no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning. 

II.  Samuel  22\  3,  4,  6,  7.  The  God  of  my  Rock; 
in  him  will  I  trust:  he  is  my  shield,  and  the  horn  of 
my  salvation,  my  high  tower,  and  my  refuge,  my 
saviour;  thou  savest  me  from  violence  [carnal  law]. 
I  will  call  on  the  Lord,  who  is  worthy  to  be  praised; 
so  shall  I  be  saved  from  mine  enemies. 

The  sorrows  of  hell  compassed  me  about  [sense 
is  hell];  the  snares  of  death  [carnal  law,  which  is  not 
God's  law]  prevented  me; 

In  my  distress  I  called  upon  the  Lord  [spiritual 
law],  and  cried  to  my  God:  and  he  did  hear  my  voice 
out  of  his  temple  [proceeding  from  the  Christ  mind 
within  me],  and  my  cry  did  enter  into  his  ears. 

Psalm  46:  1-5.  God  is  our  refuge  and  strength, 
a  very  present  help  in  trouble.  Therefore  will  not 
we  fear,  though  the  earth  be  removed  [mortal  sense 
lost],  and  though  the  mountains  be  carried  into  the 
midst  of  the  sea;  Though  the  waters  thereof  roar  and 
be  troubled,  though  the  mountains  shake  with  the 
swelling  thereof.  There  is  a  river  [spiritual  conscious- 
ness], the  streams  whereof  shall  make  glad  the  city  of 
God,  the  holy  place  of  the  tabernacles  of  the  Most 
High.  God  is  in  the  midst  of  her;  she  shall  not  be 
moved;  God  shall  help  her,  and  that  right  early. 

Janies  5:  15,  17,  18.     And  the  prayer  of  faith  shall 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        305 

save  the  sick,  and  the  Lord  shall  raise  him  up ;  and  if 
he  have  committed  sins,  they  shall  be  forgiven  him. 

Elias  was  a  man  subject  to  like  passions  as  we  are, 
and  he  prayed  earnestly  that  it  might  not  rain;  and 
it  rained  not  on  the  earth  by  the  space  of  three  years 
and  six  months.  And  he  prayed  again,  and  the  heaven 
gave  rain,  and  the  earth  brought  forth  her  fruit. 

Luke  12:  6,  7.  Are  not  five  sparrows  sold  for  two 
farthings,  and  not  one  of  them  is  forgotten  before 
God? 

But  even  the  very  hairs  of  your  head  are  all  num- 
bered. Fear  not  therefore :  ye  are  of  more  value  than 
many  sparrows. 

Matt.  6:  23,  24,  31-33.  But  if  thine  eye  be  evil 
[material],  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  darkness. 
If  therefore  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how 
great  is  that  darkness ! 

No  man  can  serve  two  masters:  for  either  he  will 
hate  the  one,  and  love  the  other;  or  else  he  will  hold 
to  the  one,  and  despise  the  other.  Ye  cannot  serve 
God  and  mammon. 

Therefore  take  no  thought,  saying,  What  shall  we 
eat?  or,  What  shall  we  drink?  or.  Wherewithal  shall 
we  be  clothed  [material  thoughts]? 

(For  after  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek :)  for 
your  heavenly  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of 
all  these  things.  But  seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God, 
and  his  righteousness;  and  all  these  things  shall  be 
added  unto  you  [in  sufficient  measure.  Try  it  and 
see]. 

Matt.  16:  24-26.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  his  dis- 
ciples, If  any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him  deny 
himself  [mortal  sense],  and  take  up  his  cross  and 
follow  me.     For  whosoever  will  save  his  life  [carnal 

20 


3o6  Christian  Science 

sense]  shall  lose  it:  and  whosoever  will  lose  his  life 
for  my  sake  shall  find  it.  For  what  is  a  man  profited, 
if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world  [carnal  sense],  and 
lose  his  own  soul  [spiritual  consciousness]?  or  what 
shall  a  man  give  in  exchange  for  his  soul  ? 

Matt.  22:  39,  40.  And  the  second  is  like  unto 
it,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself.  On 
these  commandments  hang  all  the  law  and  the 
prophets. 

Luke  12:  3,  22,  23,  31,  32.  Whatsoever  ye  have 
spoken  in  darkness  [in  the  sense  of  carnal  law],  shall  be 
heard  in  the  light  [in  the  sense  of  spiritual  law];  and 
that  which  ye  have  spoken  in  the  ear  in  closets 
[darkness,  carnal  law]  shall  be  proclaimed  upon  the 
housetops  [in  spiritual  mind]. 

And  he  said  unto  his  disciples.  Therefore  I  say  unto 
you,  Take  no  thought  for  your  life,  what  ye  shall  eat; 
neither  for  the  body,  what  ye  shall  put  on.  The  life  is 
more  than  meat,  and  the  body  is  more  than  raiment. 

But  rather  seek  ye  the  kingdom  of  God;  and  all 
these  things  will  be  added  unto  you.  Fear  not,  little 
flock,  for  it  is  your  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you 
the  kingdom. 

John  2,  Vs.  19.  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto 
them,  Destroy  this  temple  [body],  and  in  three  days 
I  will  raise  it  up. 

Psalm  78:  17-22.  And  they  sinned  yet  more 
against  him  by  provoking  the  Most  High  in  the  wilder- 
ness. And  they  tempted  God  in  their  heart  by  asking 
meat  [material  instead  of  spiritual  food ;  man  shall  not 
live  by  bread  alone]  for  their  lust.  [No  man  is  tempted 
of  God;  he  is  led  away  of  his  own  lust  and  deceived.] 

Yea,  they  spake  against  God;  they  said,  Can  God 
furnish  a  table  in  the  wilderness?     Behold,  he  smote 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        307 

the  rock,  that  the  waters  gushed  out,  and  the  streams 
overflowed;  can  he  give  bread  also?  can  he  provide 
flesh  for  his  people?  Therefore  the  Lord  heard  this, 
and  was  wroth :  because  they  believed  not  in  God,  and 
trusted  not  in  his  salvation. 

Psalm  91 :  5-7.  Thou  shalt  not  be  afraid  for  the 
terror  by  night ;  nor  for  the  arrow  that  flieth  by  day. 

Nor  for  the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  the  dark- 
ness; nor  for  the  destruction  that  wasteth  at  noonday. 
A  thousand  shall  fall  at  thy  side,  and  ten  thousand 
at  thy  right  hand;  but  it  shall  not  come  nigh  thee. 

Psalm  107:  35.  He  turneth  the  wilderness  into 
a  standing  water,  and  dry  ground  into  water-springs. 


MIND  AND  SPIRIT  ARE  ALL 

Psalm  33:  8,  9.  Let  all  the  earth  fear  the  Lord: 
let  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  world  stand  in  awe  of 
him. 

For  he  spake  [ideas  of  God],  and  it  was  done;  he 
commanded,  and  it  stood  fast  [a  true  world  of  ideas]. 

John  1:1-14.  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word 
[ideas],  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was 
God.  The  same  was  in  the  beginning  with  God.  All 
things  were  made  by  him;  and  without  him  was  not 
any  thing  made  that  was  made.  In  him  was  life 
[goodness] ;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men.  And  the 
light  shineth  in  darkness  [a  sense  of  matter] ;  and  the 
darkness  comprehended  it  not.  There  was  a  man  sent 
from  God,  whose  name  was  John.  The  same  came 
for  a  witness,  to  bear  witness  of  the  Light,  that  all 
men  through  him  might  believe.  He  was  not  that 
Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear  witness  of  that  Light. 
That  was  the  true  Light,  which  lighteth  every  man 
that  cometh  into  the  world  [the  mind  of  Christ, 
the  only  begotten  Son].  He  was  in  the  world,  and  the 
world  was  made  by  him,  and  the  world  knew  him  not. 
He  came  unto  his  own,  and  his  own  received  him  not. 
But  as  many  as  received  him,  to  them  gave  he  power 
to  become  the  sons  of  God  [to  live  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  mind  of  Christ],  even  to  them  that  believe  on  his 
name.     Which  were  born,  not  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will 

,308. 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        309 

of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man  [i.e.,  under  the  carnal 
law,  so-called  law  made  by  man.  Sounds  like  a  method 
of  birth  unknown  to-day,  doesn't  it?],  but  by  God. 
And  the  Word  was  made  flesh  [had  the  same  sense  of 
matter],  and  dwelt  among  us  (and  we  beheld  his 
glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father) 
full  of  grace  and  truth. 

Daniel  2:  20-22.  Daniel  answered  and  said, 
Blessed  be  the  name  of  God  for  ever  and  ever;  for 
wisdom  and  might  are  his ;  And  he  changeth  the  times 
and  the  seasons;  he  removeth  kings,  and  setteth  up 
kings;  he  giveth  wisdom  unto  the  wise,  and  knowledge 
to  them  that  know  understanding:  He  revealeth  the 
deep  and  secret  things:  he  knoweth  what  is  in  the 
darkness  [what  is  reality],  and  the  light  dwelleth  with 
him. 

Psalm  139:  7-12.  Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy 
spirit  [mind  of  Christ]  ?  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy 
presence?  If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven,  thou  art  there; 
if  I  make  my  bed  in  hell,  behold,  thou  art  there.  If  I 
take  the  wings  of  the  morning,  and  dwell  in  the  utter- 
most parts  of  the  sea;  Even  there  shall  thy  hand  lead 
me,  and  thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me.  If  I  say, 
Surely  the  darkness  shall  cover  me  [sense  of  evil]; 
even  the  night  shall  be  light  about  me.  Yea,  the 
darkness  hideth  not  from  thee;  but  the  night  shineth 
as  the  day;  the  darkness  and  the  light  are  both  alike 
to  thee.  [Darkness  pertains  to  man's  false  conscious- 
ness alone.] 

Acts  17:  28,  29.  For  in  him  we  live,  and  move, 
and  have  our  being;  Forasmuch  then  as  we  are  the 
offspring  of  God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  God- 
head is  like  unto  gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by 
art  and  man's  device  [i.e.,  the  carnal  law  and  man's 


3IO  Christian  Science 

idea  of  body  (material)].  [In  Him  is  no  darkness  at 
all.  "God  is  a  Spirit  and  they  that  worship  him 
must  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  "] 

Job  28:  12.  Where  shall  wisdom  be  found?  and 
where  is  the  place  of  understanding? 

20.  Whence  then  cometh  wisdom  ?  and  where  is  the 
place  of  understanding? 

23.  God  understandeth  the  way  thereof,  and  he 
knoweth  the  place  thereof. 

Romans  i :  20.  For  the  invisible  things  of  him 
from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being 
understood  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his 
eternal  power  and  Godhead;  so  that  they  are  without 
excuse.     [Underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms.] 

Romans  5:  21.  That  as  sin  [mortal  conscious- 
ness] hath  reigned  unto  death  [a  part  of  carnal  law 
only],  even  so  might  grace  reign  through  righteousness 
unto  eternal  life  [consciousness  of  eternal  life  which 
we  now  have  without  consciously  knowing  it],  by 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

Romans  8:  38,  39.  For  I  am  persuaded,  that 
neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities, 
nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come, 

Nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature,  shall 
be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God,  which  is 
in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord. 

Huxley,  Essays  on  Controverted  Questions,  page  181: 
"Whoever  asserts  the  existence  of  an  omnipotent 
Deity,  that  he  made  and  sustains  all  things,  and  is  the 
causa  causarum,  can  not,  without  a  contradiction  in 
terms,  assert  that  there  is  any  cause  independent  of 
him;  and  it  is  a  mere  subterfuge  to  assert  that  the 
cause  of  all  things  can  "permit"  one  of  these  things 
to  be  an  independent  cause. " 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        311 

Eph.  4:  23.  And  be  renewed  in  the  spirit  of  your 
mind. 

Amos  4:  13.  For,  lo,  he  that  formeth  the  moun- 
tains, and  createth  the  wind,  and  declareth  unto  man 
what  is  his  thought  [i.e.,  what  is  real  and  what  is 
false],  that  maketh  the  morning  darkness,  and  treadeth 
upon  the  high  places  of  the  earth,  The  Lord,  the  God 
of  hosts,  is  his  name. 

Zechariah  4:  6.  Then  he  answered  and  spake 
unto  me,  saying,  This  is  the  word  of  the  Lord  unto 
Zerubabbel,  saying,  Not  by  might,  nor  by  power 
[carnal  law  which  is  not  God's  law],  but  by  my  Spirit 
[spiritual  law],  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts. 

Rev.  20:  II.  And  I  saw  a  great  white  throne, 
and  him  that  sat  on  it,  from  whose  face  the  earth  and 
the  heaven  fled  away ;  and  there  was  found  no  place  for 
them.  [Could  this  be  true  of  infinite  reality?  "In  him 
we  live."] 


THE  WAY  OF   SALVATION 

Hosea  13:  4.  Yet  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God  from 
the  land  of  Egypt  [from  a  sense  of  sin],  and  thou  shalt 
know  no  god  but  me:  for  there  is  no  saviour  beside 
me. 

Matt.  16:  24,  26.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  his  dis- 
ciples, If  any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him  deny 
himself  [his  sense  of  matter  which  is  his  mortal  self], 
and  take  up  his  cross  [the  cross  of  denying  reality  to 
false  sense],  and  follow  me.  For  whosoever  will  save 
his  life  shall  lose  it:  and  whosoever  will  lose  his  life 
[give  up  carnal  sense]  for  my  sake  [for  the  sake  of  the 
Christ  mind]  shall  find  it.  For  what  is  a  man  profited, 
if  he  shall  gain  the  whole  world  [the  sense  of  matter], 
and  lose  his  own  soul  [lose  the  consciousness  of 
God  which  is  eternal  life]?  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in 
exchange  for  his  soul  ?  [He  that  loveth  his  life  shall 
lose  it  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall 
save  it  unto  life  eternal  (Bible).] 

Deut.  8:  3.  And  he  humbled  thee,  and  suffered 
thee  to  hunger,  and  fed  thee  with  manna,  which  thou 
knewest  not  [spiritual  sustenance],  neither  did  thy 
fathers  know;  that  he  might  make  thee  know  that 
man  doth  not  live  by  bread  only,  but  by  every  word 
that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  doth 
man  live. 

Mark  4:  30-32.  And  he  said,  Whereunto  shall  we 
312 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        313 

liken  the  kingdom  of  God  [knowledge  of  God]?  or 
with  what  comparison  shall  we  compare  it  ?  It  is  like 
a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which,  when  it  is  sown  in  the 
earth,  is  less  than  all  the  seeds  that  be  in  the  earth 
[mind  of  Christ  grows] :  But  when  it  is  sown,  it  groweth 
up,  and  becometh  greater  than  all  herbs,  and  shooteth 
out  great  branches;  so  that  the  fowls  of  the  air  [ideas 
of  God]  may  lodge  under  the  shadow  of  it. 

Mark  8:  34,  35,  36.  And  when  he  had  called  the 
people  unto  him  with  his  disciples  also,  he  said  unto 
them,  Whosoever  will  come  after  me,  let  him  deny 
himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  me.  For 
whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  but  whosoever 
shall  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  and  the  gospel's,  the 
same  shall  save  it.  For  what  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if 
he  shall  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own  soul? 

Luke  19:  10.  The  Son  of  man  [mind  of  Christ  in 
you]  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost. 

John  14:  I,  6.  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled; 
ye  beHeve  in  God,  believe  also  in  me  [the  mind  of 
Christ  within]. 

Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and 
the  life :  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father,  but  by  me. 
[The  mind  which  was  in  Christ  and  is  in  you  if  you  can 
gain  consciousness  of  it,  and  you  therefore  cannot 
possibly  come  to  the  Father  otherwise.  Does  this  not 
make  the  atonement  and  the  way  of  salvation  plain?] 

John  16:  33.  These  things  I  have  spoken  unto 
you,  that  in  me  ye  might  have  peace.  In  the  world 
[in  the  consciousness  that  is  ruled  by  man's  law]  ye 
shall  have  tribulation:  but  be  of  good  cheer;  I  have 
overcome  the  world  [by  a  new  law,  not  the  ''law  of 
nature"]. 

II.  Samuel  22 :  3,  4,  6,  7.     The  God  of  my  rock;  in 


314  Christian  Science 

him  will  I  trust:  he  is  my  shield,  and  the  horn  of  my 
salvation,  my  high  tower,  and  my  refuge,  my  saviour; 
thou  savest  me  from  violence. 

I  will  call  on  the  Lord,  who  is  worthy  to  be  praised; 
so  shall  I  be  saved  from  mine  enemies. 

The  sorrows  of  hell  compassed  me  about ;  the  snares 
of  death  [a  sense  of  matter  and  evil]  prevented  me.  In 
my  distress  I  called  upon  the  Lord,  and  cried  to  my 
God:  and  he  did  hear  my  voice  out  of  his  temple 
[the  true  body  of  man,  God's  idea  of  body],  and  my 
cry  did  enter  into  his  ears. 

Daniel  lo:  lo,  ii.  And,  behold,  an  hand  touched 
me,  which  set  me  upon  my  knees  and  upon  the 
palms  of  my  hands.  And  he  said  unto  me,  0 
Daniel,  a  man  greatly  beloved,  understand  the  words 
that  I  speak  unto  thee,  and  stand  upright:  for  unto 
thee  am  I  now  sent.  And  when  he  had  spoken  this 
word  unto  me,  I  stood  trembling.  Then  said  he  unto 
me.  Fear  not,  Daniel;  for  from  the  first  day  that  thou 
didst  set  thine  heart  [the  mind  which  is  in  Christ]  to 
understand,  and  to  chasten  thyself  [remake  the  carnal 
mind]  before  thy  God,  thy  words  were  heard,  and  I 
am  come  for  thy  words. 

Isaiah  i :  i6.  Wash  ye,  make  you  clean;  put  away 
the  evil  of  your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes;  cease 
to  do  evil  [think  false  thoughts  with  carnal  mind]. 

Isaiah  49:  8,  9.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  In  an  ac- 
ceptable time  have  I  heard  thee,  and  in  a  day  of 
salvation  have  I  helped  thee :  and  I  will  preserve  thee, 
and  give  thee  for  a  covenant  of  the  people,  to  establish 
the  earth,  to  cause  to  inherit  the  desolate  heritages 
[mortal  sense] ;  That  thou  mayest  say  to  the  prisoners 
[carnal  minds],  Go  forth;  to  them  that  are  in  darkness, 
Show  yourselves.     They  shall  feed  in  the  ways,  and 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        315 

their  pastures  shall  be  in  all  high  places  [spiritual 
law]. 

II.  Timothy  3:  16,  17.  All  scripture  is  given  by 
inspiration  of  God,  and  is  profitable  for  doctrine,  for 
reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruction  in  righteousness: 
That  the  man  of  God  may  be  perfect,  thoroughly 
furnished  unto  all  good  works. 

Deut.  30:  II,  12,  14,  19.  This  commandment 
which  I  command  thee  this  day,  it  is  not  hidden  from 
thee,  neither  is  it  far  off. 

It  is  not  in  heaven,  that  thou  shouldest  say,  Who 
shall  go  up  for  us  to  heaven,  and  bring  it  unto  us, 
that  we  may  hear  it,  and  do  it? 

But  the  word  is  very  nigh  unto  thee,  in  thy  mouth, 
and  in  thy  heart,  that  thou  mayest  do  it. 

I  call  heaven  and  earth  to  record  this  day  against 
you,  that  I  have  set  before  you  life  and  death,  blessing 
and  cursing;  therefore  choose  life,  that  both  thou  and 
thy  seed  may  live.  [*'  Men  chose  darkness  rather  than 
the  light." 

Luke  19:  10.  For  the  son  of  man  [Christ  Mind  in 
all]  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was  lost. 

Isaiah  10:  17.  And  the  light  of  Israel  shall  be  for 
a  fire,  and  his  Holy  One  for  a  flame:  and  it  shall  burn 
and  devour  his  thorns  and  his  briers  in  one  day  [car- 
nal sense]. 

John  8:  32.  And  ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and 
the  truth  shall  make  you  free. 

John  10:  10.  I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life 
[the  mind  of  Christ],  and  that  they  might  have  it  more 
abundantly. 

Romans  5:  21.  That  as  sin  [mortal  conscious- 
ness] hath  reigned  unto  death  [a  part  of  carnal  law 
only],  even  so  might  grace  reign  through  righteousness 


3i6  Christian  Science 

unto  eternal  life  [consciousness  of  eternal  life  which 
we  now  have  without  consciously  knowing  it],  by 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

I.  Cor.  15 :  57.  But  thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth 
us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

54.  So  when  this  corruptible  [carnal  mind]  shall 
have  put  on  incorruption  [spiritual  mind],  and  this 
mortal  shall  have  put  on  immortality,  then  shall  be 
brought  to  pass  the  saying  that  is  written,  Death 
[The  only  death  is  consciousness  of  matter]  is  swallowed 
up  in  victory. 

n.  Cor.  7:  I.  Having  therefore  these  promises, 
dearly  beloved,  let  us  cleanse  ourselves  from  all 
filthiness  of  the  flesh  and  spirit  [carnal  law],  perfecting 
holiness  in  the  fear  of  God. 

Eph.  6:  10,  13.  Finally,  my  brethren,  be  strong 
in  the  Lord  [spiritual  mind],  and  in  the  power  of  his 
might.  Wherefore  take  unto  you  the  whole  armour  of 
God  [God's  thoughts],  that  ye  may  be  able  to  with- 
stand in  the  evil  day  [when  tempted  with  matter], 
and  having  done  all,  to  stand  [with  consciousness  of 
spiritual  truth]. 

Rev.  12:  10,  II.  And  I  heard  a  loud  voice  say- 
ing in  heaven,  Now  is  come  salvation,  and  strength, 
and  the  kingdom  of  our  God,  and  the  power  of  his 
Christ  [mind] :  for  the  accuser  of  our  brethren  [carnal 
mind]  is  cast  down,  which  accused  them  before  our 
God  day  and  night. 

And  they  [minds  of  Christ]  overcame  him  [carnal 
mind]  by  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  [by  the  knowledge  of 
the  meaning  of  Jesus'  death],  and  by  the  word  of  their 
testimony;  and  they  loved  not  their  lives  unto  the 
death  [sense  of  matter]. 

Hosea  12 :  13.     And  by  a  prophet  the  Lord  brought 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        317 

Israel  out  of  Egypt,  and  by  a  prophet  was  he  pre- 
served. 

I.  Chronicles  28:  9,  20.  For  the  Lord  searcheth  all 
hearts,  and  understandeth  all  the  imaginations  of  the 
thoughts  [of  true  thoughts]:  if  thou  seek  him  [the 
mind  of  Christ  and  his  law],  he  will  he  found  of  thee; 
but  if  thou  forsake  him  he  will  cast  thee  off  for  ever 
[as  long  as  you  forsake  Him  and  live  in  false  con- 
sciousness, and  this  may  seem  to  mortal  sense  to  last 
for  ever]. 

And  David  said  to  Solomon  his  son,  Be  strong 
and  of  good  courage,  and  do  it:  fear  not,  nor  be  dis- 
mayed, for  the  Lord  God,  even  my  God,  will  be  with 
thee;  he  will  not  fail  thee,  nor  forsake  thee,  until  thou 
hast  finished  all  the  work  for  the  service  of  the  house 
of  the  Lord. 

Hosea  13:  4.  Yet  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God  from 
the  land  of  Egypt  [carnal  sense],  and  thou  shalt  know 
no  god  but  me ;  for  there  is  no  saviour  beside  me. 

Matthew  5:  17,  18.  Think  not  that  I  am  come 
to  destroy  the  law,  or  the  prophets  [carnal  law  must 
reign  until  the  spirit  of  Christ  is  regnant]:  I  am  not 
come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.  For  verily  I  say  unto 
you.  Till  heaven  and  earth  pass,  one  jot  or  one  tittle 
shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law,  till  all  be  fulfilled 
[in  each  man's  consciousness  and  we  are  thereby  free 
from  the  law  of  sin  and  death.  ''This  is  the  fulfilling 
of  the  law,"  to  change  our  consciousness  from  a  sense 
of  sin  to  an  understanding  of  God].  [Love  is  the  ful- 
filling of  the  law — the  filHng  full.] 

Mark  8:  34,  35,  36.  And  when  he  had  called 
the  people  unto  him  with  his  disciples  also,  he  said 
unto  them,  Whosoever  will  come  unto  me,  let  him 
deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow  me. 


31 8  Christian  Science 

For  whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it;  but 
whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  and  the  gos- 
pel's, the  same  shall  save  it. 

For  what  shall  it  profit  a  man,  if  he  shall  gain  the 
whole  world,  and  lose  his  own  soul? 

Luke  3:  17.  Whose  fan  is  in  his  hand,  and  he 
will  thoroughly  purge  his  floor,  and  will  gather  the 
wheat  into  his  garner  [good  qualities  in  men,  the 
spiritual  mind];  but  the  chaff  he  will  burn  with  fire 
unquenchable  [destroy  so-called  evil  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  its  real  nothingness].  [Our  progress  is 
toward  truth,  away  from  nothing.  Ye  shall  know  the 
truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free.]  [See 
previous  note  regarding  destruction  of  evil.] 


UNREALITY   OF   EVIL 

Habakkuk  i :  12,  13.  Art  thou  not  from  ever- 
lasting, 0  Lord  my  God,  mine  Holy  One?  We  shall 
not  die  [consciousness  of  continuity  of  life].  0  Lord, 
Thou  hast  ordained  them  for  judgment;  and,  O 
Mighty  God,  Thou  hast  established  them  for  correc- 
tion. Thou  art  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  evil,  and 
canst  not  look  on  iniquity:  wherefore  lookest  thou 
upon  them  that  deal  treacherously,  and  boldest  thy 
tongue  when  the  wicked  devoureth  the  man  that  is 
more  righteous  than  he  ?  [The  problem  of  carnal  man 
existing  along  with  the  man  that  is  more  righteous 
than  he? — God  not  understood  by  this  quotation. 
The  same  problem  we  have  to-day  stated  in  the  same 
paragraph  with  the  statement  of  a  "God  without  ini- 
quity."] [In  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being.     Can  a  good  tree  bring  forth  evil  fruit?] 

James  i:  17.  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect 
gift  is  from  above,  and  cometh  down  from  the  Father 
of  lights,  with  whom  is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow 
of  turning.     [How  about  evil  ?] 

I.  John  4:  7,  8.  Beloved,  let  us  love  one  another: 
for  love  is  of  God;  and  everyone  that  loveth  is  born 
of  God,  and  knoweth  God.  He  that  loveth  not, 
knoweth  not  God :  for  God  is  love.  [Can  a  good  tree 
bring  forth  evil  fruit  ?] 


319 


CORRECTION  NOT  PUNISHMENT 

Ezekiel  33:  11-17.  Say  unto  them,  As  I  live,  saith 
the  Lord  God,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of 
the  wicked;  but  that  the  wicked  turn  from  his  way 
and  live;  turn  ye,  turn  ye  from  your  evil  ways;  for 
why  will  ye  die,  0  house  of  Israel? 

Therefore,  thou  son  of  man,  say  unto  the  children 
of  thy  people.  The  righteousness  of  the  righteous  shall 
not  deliver  him  in  the  day  of  his  transgression :  as  for 
the  wickedness  of  the  wicked,  he  shall  not  fall  thereby 
in  the  day  that  he  turneth  from  his  wickedness; 
neither  shall  the  righteous  be  able  to  live  for  his 
righteousness  in  the  day  that  he  sinneth. 

When  I  shall  say  to  the  righteous,  that  he  shall 
surely  live;  if  he  trust  to  his  own  righteousness,  and 
commit  iniquity,  all  his  righteousness  shall  not  be 
remembered;  but  for  his  iniquity  that  he  hath  com- 
mitted, he  shall  die  for  it. 

Again,  when  I  say  unto  the  wicked,  Thou  shalt 
surely  die;  if  he  turn  from  his  sin,  and  do  that  which  is 
lawful  and  right; 

If  the  wicked  restore  the  pledge,  give  again  that  he 
had  robbed,  walk  in  the  statutes  of  life,  without 
committing  iniquity;  he  shall  surely  live,  he  shall  not 
die. 

None  of  his  sins  that  he  hath  committed  shall  he 
mentioned  unto  him:  he  hath  done  that  which  is 
lawful  and  right;  he  shall  surely  live. 

j320 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        321 

Yet  the  children  of  thy  people  say,  The  way  of  the 
Lord  is  not  equal:  but  as  for  them,  their  way  is  not 
equal.  [This  doesn't  sound  to  me  much  like  the  car- 
nal law  of  retribution,  does  it  to  you?  Remember — 
the  only  death  is  the  sense  of  evil.] 

Romans  8:  i,  2.  There  is  therefore  now  no  con- 
demnation [no  carnal  law.  This  is  the  condemna- 
tion that  light  hath  come  into  the  world  and  men 
loved  darkness  rather  than  the  light]  to  them  which  are 
in  Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh  [carnal 
law],  but  after  the  Spirit. 

For  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  hath 
made  me  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death. 

[Is  it  not  evident  that  the  Bible  teaches  that  there  is 
another  law,  and  that  what  we  have  called  the  inhar- 
monious and  law  of  nature  is  not  the  law  of  God  or  a 
law  that  we  need  be  subject  to  except  as  we  (mankind) 
have  made  ourselves  subject  to  it?] 

Galatians  6:  7,  8.  Be  not  deceived:  God  is  not 
mocked:  for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he 
also  reap. 

For  he  that  soweth  to  his  flesh  [mortal  mind]  shall 
of  the  flesh  reap  corruption;  but  he  that  soweth  to  the 
Spirit  [Christ  mind]  shall  of  the  Spirit  reap  life  ever- 
lasting. [Love,  which  corrects,  is  the  filling  full  of  the 
law — not  punishment.  Mortal  mind,  sowing  to  the 
flesh,  reaps  corruption  till  that  in  itself  which  is  nega- 
tive (evil)  disappears  in  nothingness,  and  true  man  in 
God's  image,  forever  perfect,  is  found.  Read  again 
Ezekiel  33:  11-17  above.] 

Luke  12:  3,  22,  23,  31,  32.  Whatsoever  ye  have 
spoken  in  darkness  [in  the  sense  of  carnal  law]  shall 
be  heard  in  the  light  [in  the  sense  of  spiritual  law] ;  and 
that   which   ye  have   spoken  in  the  ear  in   closets 


322  Christian  Science 

[darkness,  carnal  law],  shall  be  proclaimed  upon  the 
housetops  [in  spiritual  mind]. 

And  he  said  unto  his  disciples,  Therefore,  I  say 
unto  you.  Take  no  thought  for  your  life,  what  ye  shall 
eat;  neither  for  the  body,  what  ye  shall  put  on.  The 
life  is  more  than  meat,  and  the  body  is  more  than 
raiment. 

But  rather  seek  ye  the  kingdom  of  God;  and  all 
these  things  will  be  added  unto  you.  Fear  not,  little 
flock,  for  it  is  your^Father's  good  pleasure  to  give 
you  the  kingdom. 

Jeremiah  29:  8,  11,  12,  13.  For  thus  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel;  Let  not  your  prophets 
and  your  diviners  [carnal  minds],  that  be  in  the  midst 
of  you,  deceive  you,  neither  hearken  to  your  dreams 
which  ye  cause  to  be  dreamed.  For  I  know  the 
thoughts  that  I  think  toward  you,  saith  the  Lord, 
thoughts  of  peace,  and  not  of  evil,  to  give  you  an 
expected  end  [expected  through  carnal  law  which 
works  retribution  and  not  love  and  correction  unto 
perfection]. 

Then  shall  ye  call  upon  me,  and  ye  shall  go  and  pray 
unto  me,  and  I  will  hearken  unto  you.  And  ye  shall 
seek  me,  and  find  me,  when  ye  shall  search  for  me 
with  all  your  heart  [both  minds  as  one]. 


THE    KINGDOM   OF   HEAVEN 

["The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  within  you. "] 

Luke  12:  23,  32.  The  Hfe  is  more  than  meat,  and 
the  body  is  more  than  raiment. 

Fear  not,  little  flock;  for  it  is  your  Father's  good 
pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom  [of  control  over 
and  understanding  of  yourself]. 

Luke  13:  20,  21.  And  again  he  said,  Where- 
unto  shall  I  liken  the  kingdom  of  God?  It  is  like 
leaven  [the  mind  of  Christ  in  you  and  I],  which  a 
woman  took  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  till 
the  whole  was  leavened. 

John  10:  30,  37,  38.     I  and  my  Father  are  one. 

If  I  do  not  the  works  of  my  Father  [the  spiritual 
law],  believe  me  not.  But  if  I  do,  though  ye  believe 
not  me,  believe  the  works  [he  that  believeth  on  me, 
the  works  that  I  do  shall  he  do  also — because  he  will 
be  no  longer  subject  to  the  carnal  law] :  that  ye  may 
know,  and  believe,  that  the  Father  is  in  me,  and  I  in 
him.  [In  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being.] 

John  17:  3.  This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  might 
know  thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom 
thou  hast  sent  [a  state  of  consciousness  of  the  mind 
which  was  in  Christ]. 

John  17:23,  25.  I  in  them,  and  thou  in  me,  that 
they  may  be  made  perfect  in  one  [one  mind.  "In 
him  we  live,    and  move,  and  have  our  being];  and 

323 


324  Christian  Science 

that  the  world  may  know  that  thou  hast  sent  me,  and 
hast  loved  them,  as  thou  hast  loved  me.  O  righteous 
Father,  the  world  [carnal  law  and  mind]  hath  not 
known  thee;  but  I  [the  mind  of  Christ]  have  known 
thee,  and  these  have  known  that  thou  hast  sent  me. 

Isaiah  14:3,4.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  the 
day  that  the  Lord  shall  give  thee  rest  from  thy  sorrow, 
and  from  thy  fear  [mortal  sense],  and  from  the  hard 
bondage  wherein  thou  wast  made  to  serve.  That  thou 
shalt  take  up  this  proverb  against  the  king  of  Babylon ; 
and  say.  How  hath  the  oppressor  ceased!  the  golden 
city  ceased  [carnal  law  shown  to  be  nothing] ! 

Hebrews  4:  9.  There  remaineth  therefore  a  rest 
to  the  people  of  God  [in  the  consciousness  of  Christ 
within]. 

John  3:  3,  6.  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him, 
Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee.  Except  a  man  be  born 
again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God.  That 
which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh  [material  law  is  of 
man,  not  of  God]. 

Luke  13:  20,  21.  And  again  he  said,  Whereunto 
shall  I  liken  the  kingdom  of  God? 

It  is  like  leaven  [the  Christ  mind],  which  a  woman 
took  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  till  the  whole 
was  leavened  [carnal  mind  and  its  works  overcom_e ; 
assimilated  by  spiritual  law].  [The  wind  bloweth 
where  it  listeth.] 

Romans  5:  21.  That  as  sin  [mortal  sense]  hath 
reigned  unto  death  [sense  of  matter  (death)],  even 
so  might  grace  reign  through  righteousness  unto  eternal 
life  [consciousness  of  continuous  life]  by  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord. 

I.  Cor.  15:  54.  So  when 'this  corruptible  [carnal 
mind]  shall  have  put  on  incorruption  [Christ  mind], 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        325 

and  this  mortal  shall  have  put  on  immortality,  then 
shall  be  brought  to  pass  the  saying  that  is  writtten, 
Death  is  swallowed  up  in  victory  [sense  of  death  is 
lost  in  consciousness  of  continuous  life]. 

II.  Cor.  4:  17,  18.  For  our  light  affliction,  which 
is  but  for  a  moment,  worketh  for  us  a  far  more  exceed- 
ing and  eternal  weight  of  glory ;  While  we  look  not  at 
the  things  which  are  seen  [mortal  sense  and  law],  but 
at  the  things  which  are  not  seen :  for  the  things  which 
are  seen  are  temporal  [pass  out  of  false  consciousness] : 
but  the  things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal  [for  ever, 
now,  and  always]. 

I.  Cor.  2:  9.  But  as  it  is  written,  Eye  hath  not 
seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  have  entered  into  the 
heart  of  man,  the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for 
them  that  love  him  [for  the  mind  of  Christ — carnal 
mind  shall  be  destroyed  through  becoming  a  part  of 
the  one  mind  and  that  is  all  that  is  meant,  it  seems  to 
me,  by  the  destruction  of  sinners]. 

I.  Peter  1:4.  To  an  inheritance  incorruptible,  and 
undefiled,  and  that  fadeth  not  away,  reserved  in 
heaven  for  you,  [in  spiritual  consciousness,  the  mind 
of  Christ]. 

Rev.  2:10.  Fear  none  of  these  things  which  thou 
shalt  suffer:  behold,  the  devil  [carnal  mind]  shall 
cast  some  of  you  into  prison  [mortal  sense],  that  ye 
may  be  tried:  and  ye  shall  have  tribulation  ten  days 
[continuity  of  life];  be  thou  faithful  unto  death  [of 
mortal  sense  and  carnal  law],  and  I  will  give  thee  a 
crown  of  life  [consciousness  of  eternal  life]. 

Rev.  3:  20,  21.  Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door  [of 
mind],  and  knock;  if  any  man  hear  my  voice,  and  open 
the  door,  /  will  come  unto  him  [consciousness  of  Christ 
mind  in  man],  and.  will  sup  with  him,  and  he  with  me. 


^26  Christian  Science 

To  him  that  overcometh  will  I  grant  to  sit  with  me 
in  my  throne,  even  as  I  also  overcame,  and  am  set 
down  with  my  Father  in  his  throne  [consciousness 
of  God].  [Eternal  continuous  life,  with  no  appearance 
of  breaks  in  consciousness.] 

Rev.  II :  15.  And  the  seventh  angel  sounded; 
and  there  were  great  voices  in  heaven,  saying.  The 
kingdoms  of  this  world  [carnal  law]  are  become  the 
kingdoms  of  our  Lord  [spiritual  law],  and  of  his  Christ 
[mind];  and  he  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever,  [in  man] 
[the  consciousness  of  men]. 

Rev.  12:  10,  II.  And  I  heard  a  loud  voice  say- 
ing in  heaven,  Now  is  come  salvation,  and  strength, 
and  the  kingdom  of  our  God,  and  the  power  of  his 
Christ  [mind] :  for  the  accuser  of  our  brethren  [carnal 
mind]  is  cast  down,  which  accused  them  before  our 
God  day  and  night. 

And  they  [minds  of  Christ]  overcame  him  [carnal 
mind]  by  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  [by  the  knowledge 
of  the  meaning  of  Jesus'  death]  and  by  the  word  of 
their  testimon}^ ;  and  they  loved  not  their  lives  unto  the 
death  [sense  of  matter]. 

Rev.  21 :  2-4,  7,  23,  24.  And  I  John  saw  the  holy 
city,  new  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from  God  out  of 
heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  husband. 

And  I  heard  a  great  voice  out  of  heaven  saying, 
Behold,  the  tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men  [the  habi- 
tation of  the  Christ  mind],  and  he  will  dwell  with 
them,  and  they  shall  be  his  people,  and  God  himself 
shall  be  with  them,  and  be  their  God. 

And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes; 
and  there  shall  be  no  more  death  [sense  of  death  and 
matter,  but  continuous  consciousness  of  God],  neither 
sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more 


Christ  and  Meaning  of  Life        327 

pain;  for  the  former  things  are  passed  away  [carnal 
law]. 

He  that  overcometh  shall  inherit  all  things ;  and  I  will 
be  his  God,  and  he  shall  be  my  son  [mind  of  Christ]. 

23.  And  the  city  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither 
of  the  moon,  to  shine  in  it:  for  the  glory  of  God  did 
lighten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof. 

24.  And  the  nations  of  them  which  are  saved  shall 
walk  in  the  light  of  it  [knowledge  of  God  through  the 
Christ  mind] ;  and  the  kings  of  the  earth  do  bring  their 
glory  and  honour  into  it. 

Rev.  22:  3,  4,  5,  17,  14.  And  there  shall  be  no 
more  curse  [carnal  law]:  but  the  throne  of  God  and 
of  the  Lamb  shall  be  in  it ;  and  his  servants  shall  serve 
him: 

4.  And  they  shall  see  his  face;  and  his  name  shall 
be  in  their  foreheads. 

5.  And  there  shall  be  no  night  there  [no  darkness 
because  no  matter];  and  they  need  no  candle,  neither 
light  of  the  sun;  for  the  Lord  God  giveth  them  light: 
and  they  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever. 

17.  And  the  Spirit  and  the  bride  say,  Come.  And 
let  him  that  heareth  say,  Come.  And  let  him  that  is 
athirst,  come.  And  whosoever  will,  let  him  take  the 
water  of  life  freely  [spiritual  law  open  to  all]. 

14.  Blessed  are  they  that  do  his  commandments, 
that  they  may  have  right  to  the  tree  of  life  [Christ 
mind  and  spiritual  consciousness],  and  may  enter  in 
through  the  gates  into  the  city. 

Deut.  5 :  24.  And  ye  said,  Behold,  the  Lord  our 
God  hath  showed  us  his  glory  and  his  greatness,  and 
we  have  heard  his  voice  out  of  the  midst  of  the  fire: 
we  have  seen  this  day  that  God  doth  talk  with  man, 
and  he  liveth. 


328  Christian  Science 

Luke  3:  17.  Whose  fan  is  in  his  hand,  and  he 
will  thoroughly  purge  his  floor,  and  will  gather  the 
wheat  into  his  garner  [good  qualities  in  men,  the 
spiritual  mind];  but  the  chaff  he  will  burn  with  fire 
unquenchable  [destroy  so-called  evil  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  its  real  nothingness].  [Our  progress  is 
toward  truth,  away  from  nothing.  "Ye  shall  know  the 
truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free."]  [See 
previous  note  regarding  destruction  of  evil.] 

Isaiah  29:  18-20.  And  in  that  day  shall  the 
deaf  hear  the  words  of  the  book,  and  the  eyes  of  the 
blind  shall  see  out  of  obscurity,  and  out  of  darkness. 

The  meek  also  shall  increase  their  joy  in  the  Lord, 
and  the  poor  among  men  shall  rejoice  in  the  Holy 
One  of  Israel. 

For  the  terrible  one  [carnal  mind]  is  brought  to 
nought,  and  the  scorner  is  consumed,  and  all  that 
watch  for  iniquity  are  cut  off. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

TO  CHURCH   MEMBERS. 

There  are  many  good  people,  who,  without 
fully  comprehending  what  is  meant  by  Christian 
Science  doctrine,  hesitate  to  listen  to  it  because  it 
seems  to  conflict  with  that  doctrine  to  which  they 
have  already  been  committed,  sometimes  by  in- 
heritance, sometimes  by  accident,  and  some- 
times by  the  previous  assent  of  their  own  minds, 
which  they  hesitate  to  change.  Consequently 
they  are  torn  between  the  new  and  the  old,  and 
fear  to  appear  to  others,  who  do  not  comprehend, 
to  go  against  that  which  many  have  believed  in, 
because  of  the  good  results  they  have  seen  from 
the  old  beliefs  in  the  lives  of  others. 

To  such — and  my  experience  tells  me  there  are 
many — I  have  this  message.  Just  as  the  doctor, 
and  chemist,  the  business  man,  the  psychologist, 
the  spiritualist,  and  the  Christian  Scientist  are  on 
a  journey  to  the  same  destination  by  different 
roads,  so  also,  in  the  matter  of  church  belief,  are 
the  Unitarian,  the  Universalist,  the  Presbyterian, 
the  Baptist,  the  Episcopalian,  and  any  other 
denomination  you  may  name.     You  cannot  put 

329 


330  Christian  Science 

new  wine  into  old  bottles,  and  present  progress  is 
a  growth  out  of  the  old,  false,  materialistic  theories. 
The  truth  has  always  been  the  same.  The  only- 
thing  that  has  changed  is  man's  opinion  about  the 
truth,  and  it  will  continue  to  change  till  the  day 
when  instead  of  "seeing  through  a  glass  darkly" 
we  can  see  "face  to  face"  (Bible).  No  man  can 
tell  all  of  the  truth,  no  man  (save  by  demonstra- 
tion) can  tell  that  what  he  states  is  truth;  state- 
ments made  by  that  hmited  instrument  the  human 
reason,  are  always  subject  to  change,  but  the  es- 
sential truths  are  the  same  though  the  statement 
be  different,  and  from  time  to  time  the  application 
of  the  statement  becomes  a  little  wider  and  more 
near  to  the  actual  life  of  men. 

Let  me  see  if  I  can  make  you  understand  what 
I  feel  to  be  true  about  this.  I  am  Presbyterian. 
My  affection  and  my  support,  if  not  my  fullest 
acquiescence  in  its  beliefs,  belong  to  that  Church, 
and  so  long  as  I  can  do  so  without  actually  running 
counter  to  its  real  underlying  beliefs,  or  either 
repudiating  or  concealing  my  own,  I  propose  to 
give  that  Church  my  service.  I  am  at  home  there, 
and  though  there  are  many  things  in  the  written 
statements  of  the  Church  which  I  do  not  believe 
(and  in  that  I  believe  I  have  good  company  for 
there  are  many  others),  I  believe  that  I  can  worship 
God  there  better  than  elsewhere  because  it  is  my 
place.  If  I  should  go  to  the  Christian  Science 
Church  there  would  still  be  many  things  in  the 
written  statements  of  that  Church  which  I  could 


To  Church  Members  331 

not  believe  (and  in  that  I  would  again  have  good 
company  for  there  are  many  others).  The  same 
thing  would  be  true  in  the  case  of  any  church  to 
which  I  might  choose  to  go.  No  one  of  them 
would  state  all  of  the  things  which  I  believe  (in 
written  statements  of  belief)  nor  would  there  be 
any  of  them  which  would  not  contain  some  things 
(in  their  written  statements)  in  which  I  do  not 
believe.  I  am  frankly  not  a  believer  in  creeds,  but 
I  think  that  the  place  where  I  go  to  worship  God 
and  to  help  others  to  worship  God  on  Sundays 
(for  my  life  should  be  a  continuous  worship  day 
by  day)  should  be  that  place  where,  because  of 
my  associations,  I  can  give  and  get  the  most  good, 
and  unless  my  beliefs,  in  some  way  not  seen  now, 
interfere  hereafter  with  those  of  others  I  intend  to 
continue  to  attend  the  Presbyterian  Church.  If, 
later,  my  beliefs  will  not  allow  that  (and  it  may  be 
that  practically  I  will  find  I  am  mistaken  as  to  the 
possibility  of  living  new  beliefs  in  old  surroundings), 
I  will  cheerfully  go  to  some  other  place,  because 
God  is  everywhere,  and  I  can't  find  any  church 
that  exactly  states  my  idea  of  truth  at  present. 
Further,  if  I  stay,  I  am  not  going  to  quarrel  with 
my  friends,  either  in  or  out  of  the  Church,  about 
non-essentials.  I  recommend  in  this  connection 
that  you  read  again  Emerson's  Essay  on  S elf- 
Reliance.  I  have  attended  all  kinds  of  services 
in  all  kinds  of  churches,  including  Catholic,  and 
should  you  put  the  sermons  in  a  bundle  and  then 
redistribute  them,  without  the  names  of  authors, 


332  Christian  Science 

no  one  of  the  congregations  would  know  whether 
they  were  receiving  a  CathoHc,  Presbyterian, 
Baptist,  or  Christian  Science  sermon,  granting 
that  Christian  Scientists  had  sermons.  For  mark 
this,  very  few  sermons  nowadays  are  doctrinal. 
Both  pastor  and  people  have  found  that  in  human 
doctrine  is  not  necessarily  the  truth,  hut  the  es- 
sential truths  are  the  same  in  all  churches;  and 
is  not  this  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that  all  the 
little  byways  we  have  followed  are  leading 
through  experience  and  by  retracing  one's  steps 
into  the  great  one  road  of  truth  which  leads  direct 
to  God,  and  an  earnest  of  the  day  when  men  will 
stop  arguing  about  non-essentials  and  all  think 
only  of  the  real  essentials  of  worship  ? 

For  what  have  I  really  said  in  this  book  that 
any  church  cannot  accept  and  approve?  Let  us 
see.    I  have  said : 

(i)  God  is  infinite  and  no  man  should  worship 
or  ascribe  power  to  aught  hut  Him. 

To  be  sure  I  have  drawn  some  conclusions  from 
this  premise  that  you  may  not  agree  with  and  I 
don't  ask  you  to  till  your  own  experience  brings 
you  to  it.  For  instance,  to  me,  submitting  to  the 
dictates  of  the  body,  without  protest,  is  just  as 
much  idolatry  as  bowing  down  to  any  other 
material  image.  I  can't  avoid  it  at  times,  but  I 
know  that  this  is  because  of  life  lived  under  the 
condemnation  of  "loving  darkness  rather  than  the 
light. "  Again,  I  do  not  believe  in  the  existence  of 
evil  and  of  matter  as  real,  and  my  life  is  made 


To  Church  Members  333 

more  joyful  every  day  because  I  know  that  there 
is  no  seeming  power  opposed  to  God  which  I  can- 
not overcome  as  Christ  Jesus  proved,  but  that 
my  journey  is  exclusively  toward  knowledge.  I 
need  waste  no  power  in  ''resisting  evil"  but  ''can 
overcome  evil  with  good"  (Bible).  These  con- 
clusions, I  say,  you  may  not  be  able  to  agree  with, 
but  if  we  both  keep  the  premise  on  which  we  do 
agree  in  mind  every  moment  of  our  lives,  and  try 
to  live  it,  we  will  find  the  true  conclusion  some 
day,  won't  we?  If  I  am  wrong  I  will  be  brought 
to  know  it.  If  you  are  wrong,  likewise.  And  when 
we  know  the  whole  truth,  we  will  both  have  the 
same  conclusion,  so  why  worry  about  non-essen- 
tials? If  we  are  truly  and  persistently  trying  to  live 
the  premise,  we  get  nowhere  by  disputing  about 
the  conclusion  which  we  neither  of  us  can  see  at 
present  except  through  a  glass  darkly.  Let  us 
therefore  state  our  beliefs  frankly,  but  if  we  do 
not  meet  with  agreement  stop  talking  and  let  the 
truth  itself  be  its  own  missionary  to  both  sides  of 
the  argument. 

I  have  said: 

(2)     The  Christ  Spirit  is  the  way  to  salvation. 

To  be  sure  I  have  stated  my  own  belief  as  to  the 
way  in  which  that  is  brought  about  and  as  to  the 
nature  of  Christ's  mission.  For  instance,  I  think 
that  I  have  to  live  right  to  be  saved.  Living  rightly 
means  to  me  living  by  some  means  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  God,  knowledge  of  whom  is  eternal 
Life.     It  may  not  require  long  experience  to  reach 


334  Christian  Science 

that  condition,  at  least  as  long  as  we  sometimes 
think ;  and  anyway  I  have  continuous  life  in  which 
to  do  it.  I  think  that  just  so  long  as  I  live  out  of 
the  consciousness  of  the  mind  which  was  in  Christ 
Jesus,  I  will  suffer  and  no  longer,  and  that  some 
day  Jesus,  whose  sonship  and  divine  mission  I 
have  asserted,  just  as  he  says  in  the  Bible,  will  say 
again,  so  that  we  can  understand  and  comprehend 
it,  "of  all  those  whom  thou  hast  given  me  I  have 
lost  none" — for  we  are  not  really  lost  even  now 
except  in  our  own  false  consciousness.  Perhaps 
you  won't  agree  with  these  conclusions,  and  I 
don't  ask  you  to,  till  your  own  experience  has 
brought  you  to  it.  But  if  we  will  live  the  premise 
cannot  we  trust  the  Christ  Spirit  within  us  to  show 
us  all  the  truth  eventually?  And  why  should  we 
discuss  non-essentials  further  than  to  state  our 
opinions,  in  the  hope  that  truth  will  he  its  own 
missionary  and  lead  all  of  us  gently  by  the  various 
ways  in  which  we  may  travel,  to  that  knowledge 
of  itself  which  shall  set  us  free? 

And  what  else  essential  have  I  said?  Not 
another  thing.  I  have  founded  myself  on  the 
same  things  which  you,  doubtless,  also  believe  with 
me,  and  all  that  I  have  said  can  be  reduced  to  a 
common  belief.  So  far  as  I  am  able  to  see,  through- 
out the  course  of  this  book,  I  have  made  no  state- 
ments which  are  not  in  accord  with  current  belief, 
save  the  statement  that  matter  and  evil  are  not 
real,  and  let  us  see  how  far  this  belief  diverges 
from  the  common  belief  "in  its  results."     Your 


To  Church  Members  335 

belief  in  matter  is  that  it  has  reality.  You  prob- 
ably admit  that  it  is  the  source  of  evil  and  is 
something  which  v/e  should  desire  to  overcome. 
The  biologist,  as  we  have  stated,  beHeves  that 
man  has,  in  the  course  of  millions  of  years,  built 
his  own  body  to  suit  his  so-called  needs. 

Now,  what  have  I  said  that  is  different  from  this? 
I  have  said  that  instead  of  building  a  body,  mortal 
man  has  built  a  belief  in  a  body;  that  instead  of 
matter  being  actually  existent,  mortal  man  has 
constructed  a  belief  in  the  reality  of  matter 
(consciousness) ;  that  that  belief  is  something 
which  it  is  desirable  to  overcome. 

So  it  seems  to  me  that  we  both  are  agreed  that 
Vv^iether  matter  exists  or  not,  it  is  something  un- 
desirable and  something  we  could  well  afford  to 
eliminate  from  our  lives.  All  admit  this  in  desiring 
a  heaven  where  at  least  it  is  agreed  Spirit  is  All. 
In  other  words,  the  result  is  the  same.  To  my 
mind,  I  seem  to  have  made  that  result  easier  of 
accomplishment  because,  if  my  belief  be  true,  I 
have  nothing  to  fight  against  but  my  own  beliefs 
and  erring  sense  which  has  no  power.  I  do  not 
need  to  resist  evil.  All  I  need  to  do  is  to  ''overcome 
evil  with  good"  in  consciousness,  and  progress 
onward  toward  knowledge  of  Truth;  while  you, 
who  believe  in  the  reality  of  matter,  have  something 
positive  in  your  belief  to  destroy  before  you  can 
proceed  aggressively  in  the  direction  of  Truth. 
Jesus  came  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil 
(Bible),  but  it  seems  to  me  that  this  was  only  in  the 


S3^  Christian  Science 

sense  of  substituting  positive  good  for  negative 
evil,  not  in  the  sense  of  fighting  something  which 
could  ''fight"  back.  None  the  less,  the  result  of 
both  our  beliefs  is  the  same.  While  I  have  not 
consulted  a  Christian  Scientist  as  I  stated  in  the 
beginning  of  this  book  concerning  either  its  writing 
or  publication,  I  believe  that  I  have  stated  that 
doctrine  correctly.  If  I  have,  where  is  the  wide 
divergence  of  opinion  that  is  supposed  to  exist 
between  what  they  believe  and  what  is  commonly 
believed?  Do  you  not  see  that  I  am  trying  to 
point  out  again  that  we  are  all  on  the  same  journey 
and  that  the  things  which  we  discuss  so  bitterly 
at  times  are  really  the  non-essentials  ?  The  results 
are  the  same. 

Personally,  I  believe  (and  if  you  will  lend  your 
mind  to  it,  you  will  see  that  I  have  very  many 
sane  people  who  are  in  agreement  with  me,  possibly 
very  many  more  than  you  have  as  yet  realized) 
that  the  way  by  which  I  wish  to  travel  is  easier 
and  quicker  than  that  way  which  believes  in  the 
reality  of  evil  and  of  matter,  but  if  I  am  wrong 
and  try  to  practice  my  way,  it  will  lead  me  through 
experience  into  the  true  path  eventually  as  will 
yours.  So  why  should  we  not  in  as  whole-souled 
way  as  we  can,  assist  one  another  to  untangle  our 
fish  lines  each  in  his  own  way,  as  brothers  and 
without  attempting  to  enforce  our  varied  opinions 
one  upon  the  other? 

I  have  also  ventured  the  opinion  that  when  the 
Bible  speaks  of  destruction  of  sinners,  it  is  referring 


To  Church  Members  337 

to  the  evil  qualities  of  mankind  and  to  the  sense 
of  evil.  It  is  a  sense  of  evil  that  Christ  destroys 
and  not  man.  Possibly  you  will  not  agree  with 
this  but  I  ask  you  to  read  the  quotations  from  the 
Bible  with  that  idea  in  mind,  and  see  what  con- 
clusions you  reach  for  yourself. 

I  have  only  been  trying  to  show  the  experience 
of  one  man  in  trying  to  Hve  truth,  in  the  hope  that 
the  truth  in  the  life  of  some  other  may  become  and 
appear  more  real  to  him  or  her.  If  you  cannot  see 
it  as  I  do  to-day,  I  do  not  attempt  to  say  you  are 
wrong.  I  will  help  you  to  untangle  your  fish  line 
in  your  own  way,  as  I  must  with  God's  help  un- 
tangle my  own  in  mine.  I  will  believe  in  my  way, 
you  may  believe  in  yours,  and  we  will  both  press 
onward,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  brothers  on  a 
common  object  bent,  till  the  day  come  when  we 
can  say  that  we  know  truth  and  the  truth  has  set 
us  free. 

There  are  three  things  that  I,  in  closing  this 
book,  hope  to  impress  especially  on  my  readers. 
First,  while  I  know  that  the  old  idea  of  Christ 
gives  inspiration  to  many  lives  through  the  love 
and  knowledge  of  his  life,  and  while  I  do  not  in  any 
way  depreciate  that  idea  as  a  vital  factor  in  the 
life  of  the  world,  I  personally  am  convinced  that 
the  new  idea  which  makes  of  the  Christ  Spirit  a 
living  thing  belonging  to  the  constitution  of  every 
man,  is  something  that  more  men  will  understand 
and  that  through  that  understanding  of  the  way 
to  salvation,  the  spirit  and  the  life  of  Christ  wiU 


33^  Christian  Science 

become  a  greater  factor  in  the  progress  of  the 
world  than  ever  before. 

Second,  I  wish  to  express  my  personal  conviction 
that  a  world  of  ideas,  if  we  could  realize  it  in 
consciousness,  would  be  a  far  more  beautiful  world 
than  the  world  which  is  now  limited  by  our  sense 
of  matter.  I  passed  a  beautiful  building  the  other 
day  and  the  thought  came  to  me,  '*  I  believe  that 
if  I  talked  with  the  architect  of  that  building  he 
would  tell  me  that  he  had  never  succeeded  in 
getting  down  on  paper  or  in  actual  construction  all 
of  the  beauty  which  attached  to  the  building  in  his 
mind  before  it  became  what  we  call  objectified"; 
and  then  the  further  thought  came  to  me  that  as 
the  architect's  thoughts  of  the  building  are  more 
beautiful  than  the  building  itself,  God's  thoughts 
of  the  building  must  be  still  more  beautiful.  I 
cannot  concretely  portray  to  either  you  or  myself 
because  of  the  limitation  of  my  present  condition 
of  consciousness  what  it  would  mean  to  live  in  a 
world  of  God's  ideas  (i.e.,  conscious  of  unity  with 
the  One  Mind),  unspoiled  by  the  "qualities"  of 
the  carnal  mind  and  the  ''law  of  sin  and  death," 
but  I  can,  through  the  faith  which  is  the  "sub- 
stance of  things  hoped  for,"  appreciate  fully  that 
it  must  be  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth. 

Would  again  that  I  could  say  something  which 
would  lead  all  men  to  feel — whether  they  be  Presby- 
terians or  Baptists,  Catholics  or  Christian  Scien- 
tists— that  they,  in  reality,  have  everything  in 
common,   and  that   the  things  about  which  we 


To  Church  Members  339 

dispute  are  not  worth  the  effort — that  we  should 
strip  our  burdens  of  prejudice  from  us  to  the  end 
that  we  may  all  be  the  freer  to  go  forward  each 
in  his  own  way,  or  if  it  can  be  comprehended, 
changing  to  a  better  way,  toward  the  end  of  the 
journey  which  is  God,  the  Father  of  us  all. 

I  must  finally  frankly  admit  that  matter  and 
evil  seem  to  me  to  exist,  and  possibly  will  so  long 
as  I  remain  bound  in  this  false,  unreal  conscious- 
ness (carnal  law)  imposed  on  me  by  myself  and 
universal  beliefs.  I  frankly  admit  further  that  I 
cannot  see  how  something  non-existent  can  have 
produced  all  the  wrong  things  which  seem  so  real 
to  me.  That  is  I  cannot  see  it  in  such  a  way  as  to 
do  away  with  all  of  the  seeming  reality  at  once. 
None  the  less  I  can  see  that  the  absence  of  good  in 
our  perceptions — the  absence  (a  negative  thing) 
of  God  may  produce  all  that  I  call  a  sense  of 
separation,  a  sense  of  matter,  and  a  sense  of  evil. 
I  can  see  that  getting  God  back  in  my  conscious- 
ness would  destroy,  as  light  destroys  darkness,  the 
sense  of  evil  which  I  now  seem  to  have. 

In  any  religious  doctrine,  men  are  compelled 
to  say  of  something,  "  I  do  not  understand  "  and  so 
I  cannot  comprehend  how  a  good  God  can  even 
seem  to  be  absent.  I  cannot  comprehend  how  a 
good  God  can  permit  men  to  have  these  false  per- 
ceptions or  the  reason  for  it,  or  how  God  can  even 
seem  to  be  absent  if  He  be  All  and  All  Good.  Nor 
can  I  understand  why  God  should  have  allowed 
man   to  misuse  the  "dominion"  given  him  over 


340  Christian  Science 

"all  the  earth, "  or  how  a  mind  capable  of  appear- 
ing to  misuse  could  have  sprung  from  a  good  God, 
from  God  and  man  to  whom  He  gave  dominion. 
None  the  less  I  am  going  to  live  on  the  principle 
that  He  is  All  and  All  Good  even  though  I  cannot 
now  see  it  in  fact,  save  through  a  glass  darkly, 
because : 

(i)  That  is  the  only  idea  of  Him  which  satisfies 
my  life  to-day. 

(2)  In  that  way  only  can  I  attain  results  at- 
tainable in  no  other  way. 

Therefore  I  deny  anything  which  seems  to  deny 
His  completeness  and  His  goodness  and  while  I 
cannot  fully  demonstrate  it  as  yet  (dreaming), 
I  think  I  have  given  you  some  reasons  leading 
toward  the  belief  that  evil  and  matter  have  no 
reality,  and  for  the  rest  am  content  to  trust  to  the 
faith  which  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for  to 
place  me  some  day,  be  it  far  or  near,  where  I  can 
demonstrate  that  which  to-day  I  know  to  be  truth. 
When  that  day  comes  all  the  truth  I  know  to-day 
will  still  be  mine,  and  all  the  falsity  I  seem  to  know 
will  have  disappeared.  I  shall  then  know  the 
answer  to  that  which  I  cannot  because  of  limita- 
tion explain  to-day  to  the  satisfaction  of  myself 
or  any  other. 

I  suppose  someone  will  say  in  reading  this  book, 
that  I  have  first  said  that  any  man  can  set  up  an 
idea  of  God,  and  then  if  that  idea  be  not  attacked, 
can  make  his  conclusions  seem  probable — and 
that  then  I  have  done  that  same  thing  myself. 


To  Church  Members  341 

Granted  freely — but  can  you  think  of  any  philo- 
sophy, or  any  idea  about  anything,  which  is  not 
necessarily  founded  on  some  idea  of  God?  And 
have  I  not  specially  stated  that  I  do  not  ask  any- 
one to  adopt  my  idea  until  his  experience  has 
brought  it  to  him?  And  have  you  constructed  for 
yourself  your  own  idea  of  God,  founding  it  on 
reason  and  on  Scripture  before  criticizing  mine? 
If  not  I  suggest  that  you  give  the  subject  careful 
and  prayerful  consideration — it  is  deserving  of  the 
best,  for  on  it  will  your  whole  life  be  fashioned — 
and  I  venture  the  prediction  that  if  you  do  this 
with  the  desire  to  learn,  freeing  yourself  from  all 
desire  but  that  of  learning  Truth,  you  will  find 
that  your  conclusions  are  not  very  far  away  from 
mine,  as  to  the  nature  of  God.  If,  then,  you  reach 
that  conclusion — I  only  ask  that  you  be  honest 
with  yourself  and  others,  and  shirk  none  of  the 
results  which  come  from  your  own  premises. 


EPILOGUE 

In  looking  back  over  this  book,  I  see  that  I 
started  to  pick  out  a  few  quotations  from  the 
Bible  which  seemed  to  me  to  confirm  the  idea  of 
life  portrayed  herein.  I  see  that  I  have  used  very 
many  more  quotations  than  I  had  expected,  and 
I  have  come  to  this  conclusion,  which  I  believe 
everyone  who  will  read  the  Bible  with  this  idea 
in  mind  will  eventually  also  reach,  that  in  order 
to  quote  all  of  those  parts  of  the  Bible  which 
convey  the  idea  I  have  in  mind,  I  would  have  to 
reprint  the  Bible  in  whole,  for  I  find  it  difficult 
now  to  find  any  part  of  it  which  does  not  express 
the  thought  that  I  have  been  trying  to  give  you. 
I  do  not  believe  that  I  could  do  better  as  an  ending 
to  this  book  than  to  quote  the  words  of  the  Master: 

*'Come  unto  me  [the  mind  which  is  of  Christ  in 
each  and  every  man]  all  ye  that  labour  and  are 
heavy  laden  [under  a  sense  of  matter  and  of  sin]. 
Take  my  yoke  [the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ 
Jesus]  upon  you  [cease  thinking  negative  thoughts 
of  the  carnal  mind]  and  learn  of  me  [seek  the  truth 
through  me  and  the  truth  shall  set  you  free],  for 
my  yoke  is  easy  [my  law  is  that  in  which  you  have 

342 


Epilogue  343 

your  natural  habitation,  for  you  are  a  child  of  the 
light  and  suffer  so  long  as  you  are  in  the  darkness] 
and  my  burden  is  light  [both  light  in  weight 
and  light  as  distinguished  from  darkness,  i,  e.y  the 
truth  which  will  set  you  free]." 


Date  Due 

tv  '  ; 

t- 

■"^^^ 

f 

iltjill 

I 


BP943.H31 

Christian  science  and  the  ordinary  man 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00038  1006 


